In God We Trust – All Others Bring Data*
Great coaching takes us places we can’t take ourselves. Last week we added mind mapping into our arsenal of ROBUST tools and gave it props for its unique ability to help us go deeper and wider with plotting big goals. To read that article, click here.
We were just at a wedding in Atlanta. I love weddings. Taking pictures with friends and family is a lot of fun too – until you get caught looking like a Dufus in a group photo that gets posted. You can ask someone if your favorite pair of jeans make your butt look big, or you can snap a photo and check yourself. The camera doesn’t lie. Neither does great data when it comes to goal achievement.
Any self-respecting goal-a-holic will agree that you can get data in 4 ways to radically improve goal achievement of any kind:
- Video yourself. I remember seeing my first speech years ago on video – I wanted to crawl under the table. As I looked back at the memory, I thought I was far more dynamic and inspirational. There’s a reason why top batting, golfing and even public speaking coaches use video. Video can shave weeks off of your time to goal, especially by preventing you from reinforcing bad habits. And there is nothing more humbling and quickly transformative than seeing ourselves doing something on video. Your best friends may give you a “hall pass”, but that new video won’t lie.
- Get Experimental Data. Ever “feel” like you just crushed your favorite run or weekly team meeting, only to solicit real feedback and realize it was far off what you thought? For some activities like athletics, getting measurement data is easy. But we create opportunities for clients to capture experimental data in a unique way to grow their leadership, high performing teams, and even key relationships. This takes a lot of the guesswork out of areas that seem difficult to measure. Experimental data is critical cuz other measurements can be more theoretical than practical.
- Ask others for critique. I am amazed at how much people inside of businesses grow when I create a feedback “partner” to meet with them once a week after we set up the right things to actually measure. And it takes the awkwardness out of issues connected to bad attitudes and underperforming when done right. This is also why group coaching is powerful. Put the right people in a circle with the proper motives, and everyone walks away a winner.
- Self-Critique. Where self-assessment gets really powerful is when it’s connected to a coach or mentor. That’s the only reason I put it at number four because unless we can share what we are experiencing with someone like a coach/mentor, we usually stay stuck. Giving our personal feedback to someone else qualified to give us good instruction will accelerate the time to growth and goal achievement. Good coaches/mentors show others how to be critical of self for the exclusive reason of getting better. Without it, you will most likely be really soft on yourself.
Punch line? Putting these four approaches in your goal achievement plan will RADICALLY IMPROVE your success of achievement as well as cut the time to achievement significantly.
This is part seven of a ten-part series taken directly from “The Rewired Group – Coaching Experience“.