Coaching Conversations in 2025

Aligning Career Ambitions with Personal Dreams: The Power of Goal-Based Coaching

Tim Hagen

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Speaker 1:

When coaching career development, one of the greatest things that you can do is to understand where you want to go and, certainly as a leader, where your people want to go. At Progress Coaching we call it the motivator. Now we teach a coaching framework called QALMS, q-a-l-m-s the M is motivator, motivator. When you have a motivator understanding, such as someone wants to become a branch manager or they want to go into marketing, it's not always a promotion. The key to this is to always understand specifically where you want to go. Sometimes, actually most of the time, when asked people don't know. They kind of go where things take them. People lose touch of their own motivation. Here is a great technique that you can use, called goal-based coaching. Goal stands for great opportunity, actions and love. So at the top of the page put down the word goal. Ask somebody what's a goal that you have for your career? Even if it's not possible, what's that goal? And then you ask what do you want to achieve? Answer, maybe a couple times as it relates to their goal. You ask them the acronym as if they were coaching questions like what do you need to be great at? What opportunities will become your reality if you become great? What actions do you need to take to reach your goal? The L what will you love about achieving your goal? That's the emotional attachment. So what you do is you find out, you ask somebody what's a goal you have, what are some goals that you have? And what this does is it starts the exploration process, and goal again is an acronym that you can use as coaching questions Great opportunity, action and love. What do you need to be great at? What opportunities will be afforded to you if you become great? What actions do you need to take? The L what will you love about achieving this goal? Now I want to share this.

Speaker 1:

Everybody's at a different point in their career and this is from a person years and years ago at a financial services firm in the call center, and I remember when we sat down with him. His manager sat down with him and he said look, I can't do more than 75 calls a day. I can't do more than 75 calls a day, so don't try to make me do more than 75 calls a day. That was the opening few minutes of his goal-based coaching interaction with us. And what we did is we sat down and we said what's a goal that you have? And he just couldn't think of anything. So we said you know, give us a personal goal. And he said it is my lifelong dream to take my family to Ireland.

Speaker 1:

Now I've told this story many, many times. I love this story because it goes to the emotion of who people are. He did not have a career goal, he had a short-term goal and his short-term goal was, if he could reach his bonus level, he would get a bonus and he would be able to go to Ireland and take his family. Now remember his words lifelong dream. So we asked him what he needed to be great at and what opportunities will be afforded to him and what actions did he need to take? And to be really candid and transparent, his answers were kind of fluff. He was kind of going through the motions. And then he got to love when he said it is my lifelong dream to take my family to Ireland.

Speaker 1:

So the manager and I sat down, charles great guy, and he said what can we do with this? It's like he really doesn't know. Some people don't know. See, sometimes it's not always a destination. It might be in the present moment. So in this case, goal-based coaching served us really well. So what we did is we changed his screensaver to the hills of Ireland. We started anonymously putting bed and breakfast books for Ireland on his desk. We started to drop off Aer Lingus, the Irish Airlines, pamphlets on his desk, and it was driving him nuts. He's like who is this? Here's the best part.

Speaker 1:

Every Sunday night, for about I think it was about eight to 10 weeks, I left him a voicemail, knowing the first voice message he would get in the morning would be my voice, and I said Bob, this is the old country calling. We can't wait till you get here. The Irish people love to have you in the pubs. Oh, I hear you're a golfer too. I've got to get the sticks out and go hit the course together.

Speaker 1:

Till this day, we never told him it was us, specifically me and he would ask people who is this? You know, why is everyone doing this? Here was the amazing thing. Not only did he hit his goal remember the comment about 75 calls, he went to an average of 103 calls a day. We never asked him to raise his numbers. See, motivation is a very brittle thing, and so when we dive in to career coaching, sometimes it could be a short-term destination. And then I remember the manager said now, what do I do? And I said now you got to ask him what have you learned about yourself you're positively committed to? And he said you know what I can go beyond what I restrict myself. I can go beyond my own self-induced barriers. Goal-based coaching, great opportunity, action and love.