When I meet with training departments and their leaders, often our conversation turns to very specific business imperatives, such as leadership or skill development needed within the organization. I believe each person has the ability at a foundational level to either fight or accept change and challenge. Accepting change and challenge develops the core of being receptive to any type of training or coaching or mentoring.

Too often, organizations will spend money on training leaders and employees tactically specific to their job requirements. While this is important, there could be a missing piece. What if we trained and coached employees to develop a positive relationship with change and challenge? What if we utilize something called perspective-based coaching that fuels employees' minds positively on a consistent basis, using coaching questions to help them develop a positive and proactive relationship with change and challenge? Wouldn't these employees become more coachable and approachable? Would this help leaders become better coaches because the recipients of their coaching would be more accepting? Would training departments have better opportunities to work with management as training reinforcement partners if employees were more accepting of both training and coaching, as they would have more opportunity to work effectively together?

At my company, we have programs that actually fuel people's minds positively by either having them read a positive story or view an inspirational video. The key is to use messaging through stories and video, getting people to gain perspective and then to actualize that perspective by answering coaching questions, such as the following:

What have you learned about yourself?

What have you learned about yourself that you're committed to improving?

What actions could you take to positively move forward based on the lesson you completed?

What perspective have you gained that you think will successfully position you to become a great teammate?

Let's get specific. Years ago I had a young salesperson I was coaching who was extremely resistant to feedback, coaching or any type of assistance, for that matter. Needless to say, we needed him to improve his sales numbers, but we took a different tack. Instead of focusing on selling skills, we focused on developing the person. Each week we had him read a positive story that only took two to three minutes or watch a video that was inspiring, such as a military reunion. In addition, we asked the employee to journal what he learned about himself that he was committed to improving and what actions he would take. Last, we asked the employee to perform a random act of kindness once a week that demonstrated something thoughtful for another employee at the company.

Something very interesting happened. The employee began to develop more positive relationships at work, which in turn developed a more positive outlook for this employee to come to work more positively. The employees more positive relationships converted to people who were more willing to help this employee improve his sales. After 11 months, this employee improved his sales by over 40% with no tactical sales training or coaching having been done.

Often, we are focused on the job and its duties, when in fact we need to develop employees' core foundational behaviors and attitudes that allow them to accept change and challenge. This will translate to more of a willingness and acceptance of tactical training and coaching.

More:
Are We Coaching And Training Too Tactically? - Forbes