[MUSIC] Welcome back. In the last video, I referenced something I call, coaching algebra. This video explains what I mean by Coaching Algebra. At the end of this segment, not only will you know precisely what Coaching Algebra is, but how to use it effectively to diagnose performance gaps. So coaching algebra is something that I coined awhile ago. It really, I think, helps managers cleanly and clearly think about performance so that they can get the maximum effort from a coach perspective. So I can know exactly how to coach my employees, and hopefully really impact their performance overall. And I use the expression algebra because it's an equation. [LAUGH] Algebra is a mathematical equation. And there's two variables, right? That influence a result. And that's what I'm talking about in this example. So as coaching algebra is defined, this is how it looks. We all have results that we get. And in this example, I'm going to call that our, what, right? The result is the, what, it's the what we get. So we get $20,000 in revenue. We get four new clients. We get ten referrals. We get six new projects, right? These are the results. On the other side of the equation, we have skill set plus mindset. Or, how plus why. How we do our job is our skill set. This is our ability, right? This is how we do our work. Why we do our job is our mindset. These are the thoughts that we have that are driving our outcomes and our performance, whatever our result is. [LAUGH] It is influenced by our skill set and our mindset. How we do our job and why we do our job leads to the result that we get. So, if we are not getting a result that we want, we have to look at the two variables. We need to look at our skill set, and we need to look at our mindset. To see which one of those two, or both, need development, so that we can get a maximum result, moving forward. So how do we determine whether or not we're dealing with a skill set or a mind set when it comes to our employees? And we do that with three basic questions. These become the best tools, the best questions for managers who coach. So, I really want you to remember these questions. The first question is, does my employee not know what to do but they are willing to learn? So, if the goal is to increase revenue, if the goal was 50,000 and they got 20,000, is that the first time they've been asked to get 50,000? So, if it is, maybe there's a skill set gap that we need to work on with them. Increasing volume, increasing questions, etc, right? So does my employee not know what to do, but they are willing to learn? Such an important question. That helps us figure out, maybe this is a skill set issue. The second question, does my employee know what to do, but doesn't want to do it? That is a mindset issue. So maybe they generated 50,000, 60,000, $100,000 in revenue, and this month they generated 20. So now we know they have been able to do this before, so wondering if maybe they have something going on in their mind that's influencing their ability to get the work done. So they know what to do but they just are choosing not to do it. And the last question is, does my employee not know what to do and they have no interest in learning? So, that could be someone who has never achieved, $50,000 in revenue. And when you talk to them about hitting the goal of $50,000 in revenue, they look at you like no way am I ever going to be able to do that. That's impossible, I can't achieve goal like that. So now we are dealing with skill set and mindset. So those are your three questions. Does my employee not know what to do, but they are willing to learn? Does my employee know what to do and they are unwilling? They are uninterested in doing the work. And does my employee not know what to do and they are not interested in learning? These are the three questions to use. Because based on how you deduce your response, will determine how to approach them as a coach. And how we approach them is what we're going to talk about on our next section. How to coach skill set, how to coach mindset. But first, you have to really be able to determine which one is the most important. And the reason this is so important you guys, is because if you identify that someone doesn't have the skill set, but they're willing to learn and you coach them that way, and its not accurate, they really do have the skill set. You can see how that's just a total waste of your time and theirs. And that's when a lot of managers tend to be teachers. They just teach all the time or tell, they don't really develop other parts of the employee. Or the opposite could be true. You think that someone just has a really bad attitude and they don't want to do the job, but they actually just don't even know how to do what you've asked them to do. And that kind of coaching can also go sideways on you, it can be ineffective. So we want to be really thoughtful about this and make sure that we're really identifying what the challenge is for the employee. And the best way, I find, to determine if we're dealing with a skill set or a mindset issue, is when we ask that question, does my employee know what to do and they're choosing not to? We have to really have good evidence that they have done what we're asking them to do before. Have they generated this kind of revenue in the past? Is this a first time that we're asking them to generate at this level? Just because I can generate $20,000 of revenue doesn't mean I can generate 50. There's a gap there that I have to, as a manager, help fill, okay? So if I can't really find good evidence that someone has done what I'm asking them to do as a part of their goal in the past, then I do need to start to wonder if there is a skill set gap. If I know for sure that someone has done this work in the past, and now they're just all of a sudden not getting it done, I have good evidence to say, no, you have a lot of experience achieving goals like this. And now you're not. So that makes me think it's a mindset issue. And the last thing I want to leave with you in this section here is to recognize this. If you have someone who doesn't have the skill set and also is lacking in mindset, so they don't know what to do and they also don't want to learn, you have to address the mindset first, right? Think about any examples of when you've tried to learn how to do something difficult. Most of us, when we try something new and it's hard, we get really stuck in our thinking, right? This is too hard. I don't know what to do. This is impossible. I'm never going to figure this out. These are things that a lot us say in our mind. And those kinds of thoughts block our ability to learn. So until I, as a coach, have helped my employee work through those thought processes, it's very hard for me to teach them something new if they're too busy thinking about how hard it is to learn. So when we're confronted with someone who has both a skill set and a mindset gap, we have to always address the mindset gap first. So as we go into our next section and we break down skill set coaching, mindset coaching, I want you to keep in mind that someone who doesn't know what to do and isn't interested in learning, you always want to start with the mindset. So, in summary, coaching algebra is an equation were we have two variables that help determine a result. And in this case, our two variables are skill set, or how, plus our mindset, or why. Those combine to equal a result, or what. And a result is always neutral. A result is a symptom of inputs, or in this case, variables of our skill set and our mindset. So if we are not getting the result that we want, then we need to evaluate that through our employee's mindset and skill set and see which one, or both, need coaching.
