Good to Great: Coaching Excellence.

Go from Good to Great and Coaching Excellence in Ten Easy Steps???

The Good to Great part is easy………it’s writing about it in Ten Easy Steps that’s the hard bit!

Commitment to become the best you can be is essential. Once you’ve made the commitment to be great – and you adopt an “it takes what it takes” philosophy to achieving your coaching goals, you become unstoppable.

G TO G ONE: Coaching Excellence is not the issue – everything is excellent – it’s about relevance and context. It is no longer about what you know – the internet has made sure that everyone knows what you know – it’s now about how, when, where and why you do what you do;

G TO G TWO: The name of the game is living success – having a set of rules that guide the direction of your life, the decisions you make and the destiny of your dreams…everyday – try these four:

• P –  Persistance – Never, ever give up;
• A – Attitude – they can who believe they can;
• C – Consistency – it’s not about the end result every year (in the annual report) – it’s what you do everyday that makes a difference;
• E – Energy – Passion, excitement, enthusiasm – these things give you the energy to power success.

G TO G THREE: Change is critical. But – you need to accept that everyone is changing – the real challenge is to accelerate your rate of change faster than your opposition;

G TO G FOUR: All change is personal – all real change must be made at an individual level – so in the end change comes down to your ability to engage the hearts and minds of everyone in your team;

G TO G FIVE: The difference between good and great is simple: it’s about doing more – more often. Most people do the minimum standard – the great ones do more than they are asked – they challenge themselves to improve and get better – they do more than is expected. How can you be great if you do the “average” – being great is about doing more than the average;

G TO G SIX: Greatness means being different – it means being unique. It means being first. It means taking risks. No one becomes great by being the best copier or best at being someone else: be yourself – back yourself;

G TO G SEVEN: And………conflict is inevitable. Learn to thrive in conflict. Learn to fight hard (but fair) for what you believe in. All the greatest people in history have had to face conflict and challenge (and even ridicule and resentment) when they decided to stand up for what they believed in;

G TO G EIGHT: Understand who you are – who you really are – and be happy being you. You can not be successful coaching excellence by being someone else, living someone else’s biography or following someone else’s mantra. Be yourself – back yourself;

G TO G NINE: Make tough choices every day – and stick to them. No leader who has been successful is known for being a soft, quiet, uncertain person who can not make decisions. Decision making is a core quality of great leadership and a fundamental aspect of greatness;

G TO G TEN: Continuous improvement is everything. It is not about winning once – it is about continually challenging, changing, learning, evolving and improving so that you are always striving to be better. Coaching excellence is about consistently – regularly – daily – honestly – reflecting on your coaching and striving to improve.

Believe like you are number one – but passionately and relentlessly pursue improvement like you are number two.

Wayne Goldsmith