The ABCs Of Leadership...Always Be Coaching

When it comes to leadership, coaching and team building I had the distinct advantage of being raised by a coach and witnessing what coaches do in the locker room, sideline, meeting room, practice field, pregame, halftime and postgame meetings. My father also decided because of my love of sports to teach me all he knew and who and shared his tips, traits and

insights into leading, coaching and preparing people to perform to their peak. 

Being a coach’s son is a great way to grow up. It's an even better way to learn about the true value of sports and how to apply the lessons sports teaches us to our everyday lives, business, peak performance and how to become a leader. What I learned and applied to business led me to understand The ABCs of Leadership...Alway, Be, Coaching!

A coach's son gets exposed to the little things that make the difference between winning and losing in sports, business and life. The following are some of the most important lessons I learned from my father, growing up in a locker room, from other great coach's and my experience leading, teaching and coaching people using these lessons. 

Sports have always been an integral part of society. Leadership and peak performance are two of the many lessons we learn from sports that have nothing to do with the score, who won or who lost. Below I'll share 27 of the key lessons from my Locker Room Leadership Program.

My earliest memory of my father teaching me to coach began when I was 9 years old. It was a Friday night before a football game and as we entered the locker room he asked me to stop and listen...He asked me what I heard. He asked me what I felt. He asked if I felt the players were ready to play their best. It was the beginning for me of learning to prepare, lead and coach people. It was the beginning of my path to becoming who I am today. That first lesson was that leaders manage the atmosphere by coaching attitudes, emotions and the state-of-mind that produces winning results. 

I grew up in my Dad's coaching office, watching game film, on the practice field and in the locker room. I spent time with him learning to game plan and plan practices to prepare athletes to execute his plans. I watched him prepare his players to perform and was on the sidelines and heard the in-game coaching,  halftime adjustments and post game speeches which were always to get them ready...again. Then, I spent time listening to other coaches exchange ideas and heard coaches speak at coaching clinics. I am a coach's son, raised to be a coach and thankful for the lessons I learned.

The last time I spoke to legendary Major League Baseball Manager and family friend, Bobby Cox, he reminded me that I was doing what my father raised me to do...In business, rather than in sports.

My father exposed me to many of the great coaches of the past 50 years and I've learned

MY DAD, CHARLIE MOORE

from all of them. Coaches like Vince Lombardi, Bear Bryant, Tom Landry, Red Auerbauch, Don Shula, Chuck Knoll. Then I began to study coaches like Bill Walsh, Bill Belichick, Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, Tommy Lasorda, Bobby Cox, Bill Cowher, Mike Tomlinson, Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh. The one who influenced me the most after my father, was in my opinion the greatest coach of all time...John Wooden.

Coaches never stop coaching and my father never stop coaching me. We continued to talk and share ideas. He helped me refine my coaching insights and skills until the day he passed away. He and I talked for hours on end about how to apply what we both knew about coaching to business, leadership and management. We found that all he had taught me applied to coaching, executive leadership, sales management and salespeople. In addition, I learned something from every coach I ever played for, every person I ever worked with and every client I every consulted. Leaders keep learning so they can keep teaching.

I found that life and business are a performing art, just like sports. I also learned that people performed best when 'coached up' by a leader. I believe that sports are important to society not because of who wins or loses, but because of the lessons we can learn about peak performance, coaching, teamwork and leadership. Don't get me wrong, winning makes playing the game more fun, just as achievements make life more fun, and coaching and leadership is about preparing people to have more fun!

After using all I had learned to lead, coach and manage people, I began writing, speaking, teaching and training about what I had learned that would help others prepare to perform to their peak to produce their best results. 

JOHN WOODEN

I was blessed in 1996 to have John Wooden take the time to meet with me. We spent hours discussing coaching, leadership and teaching. John graciously spent those hours at his home in Encino, California where we shared ideas about how leaders should view winning, losing, relationships and life. He opened up and shared his wisdom and insights and patiently answered all my questions. I lost my father, Charles Moore, in 1992 and John in 2010. I miss them both and feel very fortunate to have called them my mentors and coaches...I love them both.

Their influence and impact on me, and many others is their legacy and the reason they will never be forgotten. The lessons I learned from my father, John Wooden and the other great coaches have served me well and helped me serve others.

Now, I am teaching leaders, managers and coaches how to build businesses, teams and individuals that produce their best results. The following are some of the high points from my 'Locker Room Leadership Series' of workshops, seminars and coaching sessions.

• Leaders challenge people to always be learning, growing and improving, their attitudes, skills and actions, to become likable, trustworthy, experts, who are helpful, caring and courageous
• Great leadership, coaching, teaching, managing and parenting is an act of will.
• Leadership is something you do with people, not for them or to them.
• If you stop learning, growing and improving, you'll stop listening and leading.
• In a locker room, boardroom, sales office or with any group of people, if you pay attention you'll hear and feel the attitudes that need to be addressed and know when they're ready to perform.
• Peak performance is driven by Spirit (Attitude), Mind (Skill) and Body (Actions). To win in sports, business and life, they have to always be kept in that order.
• Leaders don't worry about averages or rules...They set and raise standards...The lowest form of behavior that's acceptable.
• Who you are as a coach or leader is defined by the lowest form of behavior you except.
• Leaders, like winning coaches, spend the most time with the people who need to improve the most...As long as they keep participating in their improvement.
• Leaders assign and monitor so they can coach, teach and manage to generate improvement.
• Leaders manage the air to produce a high performance atmosphere! They do this by managing attitudes, because attitudes create the behavior that produces the results.
• Leaders inspire, motivate and hold people accountable to be their best.
• The traits that separate leaders are their insight, intuition and personal touch.
• Great leaders love people...That's where their insight, intuition and personal touch comes from. Love motivates them to serve, not please people.
• Most managers and coaches sabotage the results they want by trying to manage the results they want, instead of leading by instilling the attitudes that produce the behavior that creates the results.
• When you manage people results, you’re too late to lead.
• Results, the score and winning, can’t be managed. Preparation and people's spirit, mind and body can be.
• Results come from the intentions, attitudes, skills and actions that were present long before the results.
• Winning takes care of itself when leaders help people learn, grow and improve their attitudes, skills and actions.
• Leaders lift people to accomplish beyond their own expectations through preparation.
• Treating everyone the same is the fastest way to show favoritism...It takes courage to treat each person the way they deserve to be treated…The way that's best for them.
• Leader’s help people grow and become their best by getting them to do the things they don’t want to do...People don't always like this when you're doing it.
• When you truly love people, confrontation is a great tool to improvement.
• Leaders instill a performance culture by managing people’s intentions, attitudes and dominant thoughts because they are the cause of people's behavior.
• Great leaders get uncommon results from common people by requiring them do the work to become uncommonly prepared.
• In the absence of leadership, mediocrity will take over and average is the best you can expect.
• You won't know how good a job you've done until you see how the people you've led, mentored and coached turn out...Sometimes that takes years but can last many lifetimes.

Everyday is a challenge for leaders. They are always swimming up stream, fighting mediocrity and average thinking. They have to inspire people to overcome their human nature and desire for comfort before excellence and they know this starts with them.

 By Mike Moore

Be...Do...Have!

If you wake up everyday to learn, grow and improve, your attitudes, skills and actions, to be a likable, trustworthy, expert, who is helpful, caring and courageous, you'll do more na have more!

Make your 'To Be List' of the things you want to be and stay focused on them rather than on what you want to do or have!

By Mike Moore

Mediocrity Sneaks Up On You

The ABCs Of Sales Leadership...Always Be Coaching

Sales leadership requires a unique set of skills! In fact, the ABCs of Sales Leadership, Always, Be, Coaching, requires sales leaders to understand the keys to sales success that

top salespeople posses and average salespeople need to learn. Then, they can coach, teach and manage them daily. 

The key for any sales coach is how they instill, inspire and develop their salespeople's Emotional Sales Intelligence (ESI). ESI is the combination of a salesperson's mindsets, beliefs and intentions. ESI reveals a salesperson's self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. It's the driver of a salesperson's performance. It is the key to their continued development and actions. It's what separates mediocre salespeople from top performers.

If you want each year to be your best year yet, Then get ready to think, act and be different? It's time to be odd (Optimistically, Determined to be Different), or accept the alternative, being average!

So let's look at the 7 most important things a Sales Leader needs to understand so they can spend their time coaching, teaching and managing them to instill a winning sales culture and produce extraordinary results. 

1. Mindsets, beliefs and intentions drive behavior...

People cannot behave outside their mindsets and intentions. Some they're aware of, others are deeply rooted in their psyche, subconscious or human nature but they must be aligned or overcome to become their best.

The most important thing you can do is become self-aware of your mindsets, beliefs and intentions and learn to control them to create the results you desire!

2. Human nature and what people seek...

Are you good enough? Your answer sets you up to grow or shuts you down to be less than your best. You see, it's not that you need to be better, you're probably good enough to be comfortable or you'd be working hard to improve, just like you did until you reached your comfort level.

Instill the desire in your salespeople to learn, grow and improve, instead of seeking comfort. Help them create a habits of doing the difficult uncomfortable things first to become their best.

3. The power of intentions...

What are your salespeople's intentions when they go to work, and every time they meet with a prospective buyer?

The intention to make a sale must be shifted to helping, serving and doing what's best for the buyer. This is the secret sauce of top salespeople, that allows them to make customers and produces the best sales results.

4. Remembering the positive, overcoming the negative...

When salespeople think of buyer's, which one's do they remember? The compliant easy going buyers or the difficult, challenging, non-compliant buyers? Which ones' do they talk about the most and use as their excuses to keep from doing what extraordinary salespeople do? Since we're all wired to remember the negative the non-compliant buyers manage most salespeople's attitudes about buyers by default.

Top salespeople overcome their nature to remember the negative and stay focused on the positives. You must help them manage their attitude towards buyers and not let the difficult buyer manage their attitudes.

5. Respect and trust the buyers ability to make good decisions...

Only the top 4% of salespeople said they respected and trusted the buyers ability to make good decisions. Most salespeople don't respect the buyer and struggle to earn the buyers respect in return.

Hold your salespeople accountable to trust and respect the buyer's ability to make good decisions and watch their sales soar! Help them switch their mindset to respect and trust people's ability to make good decisions. Keep them focused on explaining the consequences of the buyers decisions, both good and bad, rather than just sharing information with the buyer.

6. Focus on the buyers ownership experience, not the buying experience...

Most salespeople are focused on the buying experience. Top salespeople focus on the buyer's ownership experience and this mindset transforms the sales conversation and the buyer and salesperson's relationship.

It's your job to shift your salespeople's focus from the short term reward of transactions, to the long term benefit of the buyer's ownership experience.  Help your salespeople overcome their nature to seek instant gratification and they'll improve, be at their best for the buyer and their sales will soar.

7. Conversations, not presentations...

Top salespeople are present, engaged and have real conversations with buyers. Most salespeople talking heads making sales presentation that buyers don't like, believe or trust.

Make sure your salespeople turn selling into an individual personal experience for each buyer. This will help them reach their peak performance! Teach them that selling isn't executing a sales process, it's being trusted enough that the buyer will invite them to be their guide in their buying process.

As you coach, teach and manage your salespeople always keep in mind, selling is the most difficult performing art in the world. Salespeople, like all performing artist, athletes or musicians, need a leader and leadership is personal, it's not professional! It requires a strong mind and a positive attitude to overcome the obstacles and adversity that comes with connecting, communicating and serving people everyday. In fact, I'd go so far as to say sales makes a great career but a lousy job. So, make sure your salespeople are all in, fully engaged and committed to a career in sales, and not just working at a job. Then, they'll be the difference in their buyer's ownership experience, make customers and enjoy the ups and downs of a sales career. 

By Mike Moore

To Lead You Must Care

Leaders Coach, Teach & Manage

Moore Leadership Hall Of Fame

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Avoid Mediocrity By Overcoming Your Nature

How can you prepare to be at your best when your best is needed? To be cheerful, happy and prepared to handle the obstacles, adversity and hassles of a normal day? The answer to these questions will assure you of not being mediocre? Make no mistake, mediocrity creeps up on you when you aren't prepared. It happens to those who are to busy to learn, grow and improve. No one ever sets out to be mediocre, it just happens while they are seeking comfort and making excuses. There is a starting point if you want to avoid mediocrity...Peak performers all start by understanding and using the power of their intentions.

When you wake up in the morning you have an expectation or intention for your day. Your expectations and intentions are the first choice you make that begins to separate mediocrity from extraordinary. What are your intentions or expectations for the day ahead?  I've asked individuals and groups, large and small, this question over the past two decades and the overwhelming number one answer is, “I want to have a good day”.  When I ask people to define a good day, the definition is, “A day with little to no problems or hassles”.   When I ask them how many days a year this intention or expectation is met, they usually answer, “None”.  Yet, they wake up each day and repeat this behavior without changing their expectation or intention. The vast majority of people start each day with an unrealistic expectation or intention, that when not fulfilled, makes them frustrated, upset and unhappy. When we set expectations that aren't met, we are usually disappointed.

Managing your own intentions and expectations drives your daily emotions and state-of-mind. People who become mediocre focus on their circumstances and not their solutions. This makes their circumstances the driver of their emotions. This puts their emotions, or state-of-mind on a roller coaster ride of peaks and valleys that sabotages their ability to create the results or life they want. 

First, let’s look at why people set an intention or expectation of no problems, no hassles and no worries, and defined this as a good day.  When we wake up each day we have a choice to make, “Better or Comfortable”.  Our human nature seeks comfort before improvement and is satisfied to be comfortable. We don't want to be average but have to choose to do things we don't want to do if we want to be extraordinary. We don’t wake up each day driven to be better human beings or to make things in our life better.  So, the challenge is how to overcome our human nature and stop sabotaging our own lives. 

When we define a good day as no problems, no hassles and no adversity and then meet the first problem of the day, how do we react? If you said, “Frustrated” you'd be right.  Your expectation or intention has set you up to be frustrated. Not the best state-of–mind to handle life or work problems. This pattern of behavior begins a downward spiral of poor emotions. These emotions make you less capable of handling the next problem. Maintaining this emotional cycle may even make you avoid, withdraw or quit trying to overcome the obstacles in your day. The end result of this is mediocrity, at best.

How can you change your expectations or intentions to change your results? Remember, "Everyday the choices you make, make you".  When you start your day, change your expectation or intention by changing your definition of a good day.  Let’s revisit the idea or definition of a good day. If your choice is comfort you define it as “no problems”. Think about when you feel best about yourself. Your self-worth or self-esteem is best when you overcome adversity, solve problems and help others.  So to change your results, to develop the emotional state-of-mind to make a difference in your life, you need a new definition of a good day.

This new definition can help you make a better first choice as you wake up each day. Define a good day as one where you find, meet and overcome problems and adversity. Yes, you need to wake each day looking for problems.  Problems to solve that will help people.  Just a note...You shouldn't be looking to make problems...that won't make for a better life. You need to look for and find existing problems, and then help solve them.  If you are part of a problem, stop complaining and start finding solutions. This definition will help you to stop avoiding conflict and endure difficulties with the proper emotional state-of-mind.  Armed with this new definition, when you find problems, you will be eager to meet them head-on and won't become frustrated.  You'll become an overcomer and not a victim of your circumstances.

Adversity and problems are the obstacles that stand between where you are and the results or life you want.  The first step to overcoming adversity and problems is to develop an attitude or emotional state-of-mind that can overcome the obstacles. Our attitudes are most affected by our intentions and expectations that create our daily choices and allow us to choose to be better rather than comfortable. This thinking will even start to help you embrace change and stop fighting to hold on to a status quo that may be keeping you average as well. 

Redefine a good day, expect problems and hassles. Become an overcomer, a solution finder, and then you'll begin to experience a, 'Good Day'...everyday. This cycle of behavior will make your life is a journey of solutions that serve others and rewards you with the results and life you want.

A final thought for leaders...You are responsible to teach, prepare and help people set expectations that will allow them to live and work towards a better life. Helping people understand how their expectations and intentions are empowering them or sabotaging them is a good first step.

Change your expectations, to prepare for the hassles of life, to increase your happiness and improve your results. Expect more of yourself and less of others...These is one of the top traits of leaders, peak performers and the extraordinary.

By Mike Moore