Xpand Management

First off when dealing with managing your people you need to realize that everyone is very different. They all have different goals, interests, fears, passions, limiting beliefs, stories, traumas, expectations, etc… 

Discovery with your people is a MUST… seek first to understand. Ask questions that will help you better understand their stance and lense on the world. If you have time, take them to lunch, or invite them to an activity or hobby of yours. I love taking clients out golfing, mountain biking, or hiking. It helps break down their walls and gets them into a more comfortable place to relate with me. Invite their significant other to connect as well. You can learn a lot about someone through their partner. 

Before I start ranting off orders, and setting goals with these people I must know what style of leadership they are needing from me. Meaning do they like tough love? Do they need consistent communication, or do they just need you to touch base once and a while. How do they like to communicate? What is too much and what is not enough? What type of rewards motivate them? They like public recognition, or more material prizes. They like time off, or money? All these things are customizable with your mentees. 

An easy model to follow is the GROW method when learning about someone: 

G – Goal – Clearly define the goal of where the person wants to be? What are the main objectives during this relationship, and how important are those to them? 

R – Reality – Define where the person is today, what are their current challenges, what strengths and weaknesses do they have? 

O – Obstacles – What are the current obstacles they are facing? What are potential obstacles they will be facing as they set sail on this new journey to achieve their goals. 

    –  Options – Once obstacles are defined, you can look at options that may advance the person forward. Options for action items that they could take to get the ball moving. 

W – Way Forward – List out the action steps for them to take. Start mapping out a program. 

Before going into these conversations it’s important to have a system where you are going to take notes and track these calls. In the app Xpand we have a shared notes section that many leaders use to write the answers and bullet points down, that lives in a common area, and is constantly being viewed. If you take notes on a notepad, there is a risk of losing it, and it will not be remembered in 6 months when you wanna look back and review where you started or previous important info. Other options are google doc, google sheet, google keep, word doc, etc.. 

I would also prompt the mentee to take good notes for their record, and to have a spot where they can reference back their progress and action items. 

I have found it to be a best practice to record and save the calls. In Xpand it is easy to host your calls directly out of the app with video on or off. They can be recorded and stored right there in the mentees profile. This makes it easy to have all your calls saved on a mutual platform. Many people use zoom or google hangouts – if so you can send them the recording afterwards – it just will always have to be searched for in their email. Recording calls is important for liability reasons as well. Sometimes clients or people want to hold words against you later on when they aren’t getting results. You can always reference back to what was discussed and clarify any doubts needed. This can save you in any legal, or refund battle.  

These are a few discovery questions when taking on a new client, employee or mentee that may help you understand them better. (again copy paste people… you can just start reading these in your first one on one meeting) 

Goal Questions: 

• What do you want to achieve from our coaching relationship?
• What goals do you want to achieve?
• What is your main outcome from today’s conversation? 
• What would you like to happen with____?
• What do you really want?
• How long have you really wanted this? 
• Why do you really want that? 
• If we were to fast forward 6 months from now, describe to me what things look like. 
• Tell me about what gets you excited when it comes to the results you’re about to see. 
• What would be the most ideal outcome? Describe it in detail
• What do you want to change? 
• Why did you sign up with this coaching program to begin with?
• Why do you find it important to have me as your mentor? 
• What would the benefits be if you achieved this goal? 
• What role do you see myself playing in your journey to accomplish your goal? 
• How committed are you to this goal? Scale of 1-10? 
• Permission for me to call you out, and hold you accountable when I see you off track? 
• Who else do we need to share these goals with? 
• Where do we write these down? Where can you see this on a constant basis? 

Current Reality: 

• What is happening now (what, who, when, and how often)? What is the effect or results of this? 
• Have you already taken any steps towards your goal? 
• How would you describe what you did? 
• Where are you now in relation to your goal? 
• On a scale of one to 10, where are you? 
• What has contributed to your success so far?
• What progress have you made so far?
• What is working well right now?
• What is required of you?
• Why haven’t you reached that goal already?
• What do you think is stopping you?
• If you were to continue living life as is, what would the consequences be? 
• What do you think was really happening?
• Do you know other people who have achieved that goal?
• What did you learn from _____?
• What have you already tried?
• How could you turn this around this time?
• What could you do better this time?
• If you asked ____, what would they say about you?
• On a scale of one to 10, how severe/serious/urgent is the situation?
• If someone said/did that to you, what would you think/feel/do?

Obstacles: 

• What potentially could stand in your way? 
• What patterns have you seen in the past to get in the way?
• What people are holding you back in your life?
• How can you start to avoid those relationships
• What are some of your bad habits we need to stop? 
• What are your limiting beliefs around this goal? 
• Where are your thoughts and emotions going to get in the way? 
• What stories are we needing to rewrite? 
• Who in your life is a naysayer and why? 
• Do YOU really believe through my help, and your commitment you can accomplish this? Why? 

Options: 

• What are your options?
• What do you think you need to do next?
• What could be your first step?
• What do you think you need to do to get a better result (or closer to your goal)?
• What else could you do?
• What habits can we start to implement? 
• Who else might be able to help?
• What would happen if you did nothing?
• What has worked for you already? How could you do more of that?
• What would happen if you did that?
• What is the hardest/most challenging part of that for you?
• What advice would you give to a friend about that?
• What would you gain/lose by doing/saying that?
• If someone did/said that to you what do you think would happen?
• What’s the best/worst thing about that option?
• Which option do you feel ready to act on?
• How have you attacked this/a similar situation before?
• What could you do differently?
• Who do you know who has encountered a similar situation?
• If anything was possible, what would you do?
• What else?

Way Forward: 

• How are you going to go about it?
• What do you think you need to do right now?
• Tell me how you’re going to do that.
• How will you know when you have done it?
• Is there anything else you can do?
• On a scale of one to 10, what is the likelihood of your plan succeeding?
• What would it take to make it a 10?
• What obstacles are getting in the way of success?
• What roadblocks do you expect or require planning?
• What resources can help you?
• What training do I and you have access to help you? 
• Is there anything missing?
• What will one small step you take now?
• When are you going to start?
• How will you know you have been successful?
• What support do you need to get that done?
• What will happen (or, what is the cost) of you NOT doing this?
• What do you need from me/others to help you achieve this?
• What are three actions you can take that would make sense this week?
• On a scale of one to 10, how committed/motivated are you to doing it?
• What would it take to make it a 10?

These types of calls aren’t just something you do one time. These are questions and calls you will have frequently. People’s visions and goals will adapt as they progress with you. They will find new interests, and believe me they will forget real quickly why they even joined your coaching program. They will revert back to old ways and you will have to have some reigniting conversations to keep them back in line. 

It is always better as a manager or coach to set up a cadence of calls, weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly. This will build structure to your program. Some coaching/management relationships function just fine with sporadic conversation, but this is dangerous because you will naturally gravitate towards clients that you jive better with, and that more frequently reach out to you, and you will leave some in the dust and they will feel forgotten even though they don’t address that. To avoid leaving your people in the dark, create automations in Xpand to create assignments, and check-ins that will make your clients feel as though you are watching from above and still paying attention to their activity.