Let\u2019s say you\u2019re the manager of a team and, for whatever reason, you realize that someone who reports to you is missing an essential skill. What do you do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a common situation. One day, you notice that there\u2019s a major difference between what this person needs<\/em> to do in order to succeed in this position \u2026 and what he or she is able<\/em> to do. Let\u2019s say it\u2019s a salesperson, and let\u2019s say the skill has to do with conducting an effective initial discussion with the prospect. Let\u2019s say that skill just isn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s also say you\u2019re also pretty certain this particular gap isn\u2019t about willingness. The salesperson in question \u2013 we\u2019ll call him Bob \u2013 does want <\/em>to have better discussions. It\u2019s just a matter of him not yet having learned and practiced the required skill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n WHAT NOT TO DO \u2013 AND WHAT TO DO INSTEAD<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If I was the manager, I had a good person like Bob on the team, and I knew that a key just skill Bob needed wasn’t there in an essential area, the first thing I would do wouldn\u2019t <\/em>be to sit Bob down and say, \u201cHere\u2019s how you run a meeting with a prospect. Pay attention.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first thing I would try to figure out would be the Pain \u2013 specifically, Bob\u2019s Pain. This is a step that a lot of managers skip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bob\u2019s Pain is his personal frustration, the thing that keeps him up at night. I\u2019d be very interested in learning about that, and about all the possible the side effects of that pain. I\u2019d want to get a clear picture of what obstacles Bob was facing in life, and how his life and his sense of personal fulfillment were being held back. Let\u2019s say, for the sake of argument, that the pain in Bob\u2019s world is his uncertainty about how he\u2019s going to pay for his daughter Kelsey\u2019s higher education. She\u2019s a sophomore in high school now, she\u2019s deeply goal-oriented (just like Bob) and she wants to become a lawyer. Bob supports that goal, and he wants to make sure Kelsey\u2019s experience with higher education is a lot easier financially than his was. Bob got saddled with a lot of debt when he went to school, and he doesn\u2019t want his daughter to repeat that cycle. Right now, he\u2019s not sure he\u2019s going to be able to keep that cycle from repeating in Kelsey\u2019s life, and that\u2019s stressing him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A side note: The best way to get a clear picture of Bob\u2019s pain \u2013 of anyone\u2019s pain \u2013 is to take the time to get to know them as a person. This is best accomplished naturally and informally, over a series of events (such as going out to lunch together), not by means of a questionnaire or some awkward interrogation session featuring questions like, \u201cCan you tell me what your pain is, Bob?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n THE VISION<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Once I had a clear sense of what was missing in Bob\u2019s life, I would want to get a sense of his vision for his own life. Where does he want to be? The Vision is all about what the person wants to do, have, accomplish, or become. It could connect to a certain type of lifestyle, or to a specific<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bob\u2019s Vision, as it turns out, is to get his daughter into, and through, college and law school without her having to take on any debt at all. That goal is important to him. That\u2019s where he wants to be. Here again, the best way to get a fix on Bob\u2019s vision is to spend one-on-one time with him and show interest in him as a person. This is likely to take more than one discussion. The point of all these discussions about Pain and Vision is to establish were Bob is right now \u2013 and where he wants to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The word to describe the difference between where Bob is now and where he wants to go is Gap \u2013 and that\u2019s what I would want to focus on next. In other words, what’s keeping Bob from getting to a position where Kelsey doesn\u2019t take on a single cent of student debt? What is keeping him from doing that? And what are the things he would have to accomplish in order to close that Gap?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Knowing Bob\u2019s Pain, Bob\u2019s Vision, and Bob\u2019s Gap allows me to bring up the skill issue in a very positive light during my one-on-one coaching sessions with Bob. I\u2019m not going to say, \u201cBob, sometimes the truth hurts, but here it is: you don\u2019t know how to run a decent meeting. Let me show you how it\u2019s done. I\u2019m coming to your next sales call. Stay quiet and watch me do it.\u201d And I\u2019m not even going to say, \u201cBob, I made a mistake in hiring you without realizing you were incapable of running a decent discussion with a prospect.\u201d Both of those messages would send the conversation in the wrong direction. And yes, they would also send the wrong message if I made them sound a bit more polite. The same dynamic would be there: I, the boss, am the expert, and Bob, the subordinate, is not okay because of this skill gap that we need to fix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, what I\u2019m going to say to Bob is, \u201cOkay \u2013 given where you are now and where you\u2019ve told me you want to go, does it make sense for us to work together to get your questioning skills up to a level where they support the right income goal \u2013 and your plan to get Kelsey through college and through law school without her having to take on any college debt?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In other words, I\u2019m going to ask Bob a question, based on what I\u2019ve learned about his Pain and his Vision, and see if he agrees about the importance of closing the Gap. Then I\u2019m going to ask other questions that continue that important conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n