I now have a name for my condition….what a relief!! Treating my condition is exactly what I’m here….doing….I was introduced to Lencioni, and the Working Genius by a brother-in-law, thanks Jeremy, and a cousin, thanks Tony, and then it really resonated as I began building out our leadership team at Kingdom Autocare. Specifically, I’m an ID, and that’s, I guess, why, I’ve always been drawn to models, better ideas, etc. It is good for a person to recognize that others just aren’t as fond as this stuff as I am. I thought the Peak Performance model was amazing, but most people are like, meh.
Naturally, the WG model was developed primarily by an ID. No surprise there!! Anyway, you can get a sense of this here but this really isn’t the topic of today’s writing. It is, of course, to publish another model, though admittedly this one isn’t nearly as fleshed out as the Peak Performance model.
What necessitated this model? I was sitting at the Shop Hackers conference and I had a beautiful aha moment. The standard model for multi-shop owners is to, when you have too many shops for the owner to manage effectively, hire a district manager / general manager. I didn’t like that model for several reasons, but who was I to fly in the face of conventional wisdom? Yes, that is where my condition has a visceral reaction and starts throwing a fit. Of course I like to fly in the face of convention wisdom, or my name isn’t Invention/Discernment.
A good model is cross-discipline, spanning time, culture, etc. That’s some of the reason I find them so compelling. It is a small-t truth. So, like the peak performance model, while this has a direct application to Kingdom Autocare, if it is a true model, you should be able to use it for a multitude of other scenarios. Let’s see how I do…
So, instead of the top-down approach (traditional) to leadership or the bottom-up approach (servant leadership), neither of which are scalable, calling ALL to grow into the best version of themselves that they can be, or financially practical in a growing organization, let me propose a leader-coach-trainer. The circle represents a store leader, the double arrow is a store leader acting as a coach, and the single arrow is a store leader acting as a trainer.
You can see that the minimum number of people to make this model really hum is five. Here’s why. I’m working with a business owner as his coach. There are others also there to help-we will call them trainers. A coach who is also a trainer is problematic, between these two roles are necessarily unique. Further, it would be problematic if the business owner was my coach. I’m not saying it can’t work, after all, we expect a husband and wife to be the primary accountability partners for each other….but hear me out. If I’m not making the improvements that I need to make, I’ll be tempted to not call out the business owner when he doesn’t, because I might subconsciously hope that he is a little easier on me when it’s time to talk about my performance. I believe the same holds true with the trainer role.
So, five is the minimum number of people where a leader can be coached and trained by people other than who he is charged with coaching or training.
A leader: responsible for action, growth
A coach: responsible for goals, motivation, accountability
A trainer: responsible for support, assistance, and resources
I believe any leader, after being provided a structured approach / framework and some basic coaching training can be an effective coach. Further, they will become better leaders and trainers in their own right as a result of coaching another leader, as well as observing how another leader is coaching them.
I believe any leader, after being provided a structured approach / framework, some basic trainer training, and a group of training resources can be an effective trainer. Further, they will become better leaders and coaches in their own right as a result of training another leader, as well as observing how another leader is training them.
I rolled this model out at our last leaders retreat and shared it with my coach. Next steps, feedback, tweaking, and then building out the structure around such a model. Stay tuned!