OK, so maybe Coach Lombardi was talking about football and Alexia Vernon was talking about HR, but the same message is being passed: coaches help people improve their performance and enhance the quality of their lives by listening, observing, and finding solutions that already exist within the people they’re working with.

 

In Alexia’s webinar, she reminded us that a good coaching session has five parts: listen, learn, empower, recap, and action.

 

Coach Lombardi followed the same process. As an assistant coach in the 1958 season, his Green Bay Packers finished with a 1-10-1 record, still the worst in the franchise’s history. In ’59 he took over as head coach and held individual meetings with each player on the roster about what they wanted to accomplish and how they thought they could get there. Those ’59 Packers improved to 7-5. The next year, the team lost in the NFC Championship game–he famously told his players after the game, “This will never happen again. You will never lose another championship.” His Packers would go on to win NFL Championships in ’61, ’62, ’65, ’66′, and ’67 (the latter two being the first two Super Bowls) (oh yeah, and the Super Bowl trophy, shown to the right, would later be named the Lombardi Trophy).

 

Like Lombardi’s individual meetings in ’59, Alexia reminds us to replace the question, “What do you want an employee to do?” with “Who do you want an employee to be?” After all, we’re not called being humans, we’re called human beings.

 

Thanks, and make it a great day!