Are Leadership Coaches Valuable? - Interviews with business leaders - Phil van hooser - Part 3

Welcome back to Influence and Impact. We’re talking today with Joe Scarlett and we’re talking about the subject of coaching. Joe, you’ve already given us a lot of information to consider about coaching and how to do it more effectively and who are the right people to focus you’re attention and time on relative to coaching. One of the things we haven’t talked about, though, is you. Who is the best coach that you’ve ever known and why would you consider them to be the best coach? I could single out two great coaches that I’ve had. The first was my father who taught me all about business when I was a young man and really helped me set my goals very, very high in life and was always a great mentor and a great coach and the second is my predecessor in Tractor Supply Company, Tom Hennesy, who is my coach and mentor for about a dozen years and helped me settle down to being a more mature executive and one that could really pay attention to the right kinds of things. So you can have personal coaches i.e. your father and professional coaches and both of them have equal merit in terms of your memory there? That’s correct. Okay, now you said in the past it was your father and Mr. Hennesy. What about now? Who coaches Joe Scarlett, the head coach now? Well, I’ve got a couple of answers to that, but first is my wife. Okay. She will simply straighten me out when I am off base and help me go in the right direction and the other is I’ve created an environment where people are not intimidated by coming and talking to me. I tend to get a lot of people who come in and coach me and say, “Hey, Joe, I think you’re off base on this particular topic,” and I listen to them and I listen carefully and sort of created an environment where people can speak up and I listen accordingly, so I am being coached by the people around me. So sometimes the team members themselves step into the coaching or at least temporarily on issues that you face? They do and I am grateful for that. Good. Let’s talk for the time that we have remaining about the practical aspects of coaching. Let’s assume for a second that you invest all this time and energy in the coaching process, you’re doing your best and yet for one reason or another something or someone falters. How much of a burden of responsibility does the coach himself/herself share when the team member or the team in itself in total fails? I think coaching is an enhancing process. The team and the individual have the responsibility to execute their plan and be accountable for their responsibilities. My coaching role and others’ coaching role in our company is one of helping people excel and helping people do more than what they’re currently doing, so responsibility for poor performance rests with the team or the individual. The word on the street is that when they do well as you suggest, that’s what you’re coaching for, the spirit of celebration is alive and well at Tractor Supply Company. Tell me about how you celebrate the successes of coaching or the successes in general that happen within your organization. One of our basic beliefs is that recognition is the number one motivator of people and we’re a very recognition-driven company. We do lots and lots of things, probably the most famous of which are our success stories. We literally tell thousands of success stories every year about how various people have achieved things that might otherwise be considered out of the norm, so we’re continually patting people on the back not just its written success stories, but throughout our organization. So you tell the stories internally, but also share them externally as well? We share all of our stories internally and we share some stories externally. We’re proud of our people and proud of our accomplishments and we like to talk about them in every possible venue. Good, can any executive be a coach, Joe? I think every good executive should be a coach. I believe that people are the key to success and as leaders we executives need to be coaches to our people. We need to be helping to develop the people around us so that both we and our companies are successful. So then if they can be and should be, what are the practical aspects or what are the steps in the coaching process that all of us should be focusing on and if we haven’t developed them so far maybe we need coaching ourselves, but what should we be working toward? I think, first, a good coach has to be approachable and has to be open and has to be a non-intimidating personality. You’ve got to simply be able to communicate effectively. First, I think an open personality and open environment for communication and then second you need a game plan. I see that so-and-so needs to improve in a certain area and I’ve got to put together a game plan as to how I am going to help that person excel in that area. Do other executives in your organization basically share the same philosophical bent about coaching that you do and if so, is that part of the company culture or is that simply driven by your own personal belief that this is important? Success throughout our organization is something we celebrate all the time and we encourage our leaders at every level to be coaches of their people, to help their people do well. We have 500 and some stores and every store the performance is all about the leader in that store and the leader in that district and the leader in that region. So we work continually to help every one of our leaders throughout our organization do well. This has been invigorating for me because I’ve always believed in the quality of people and the importance of people and the impact frankly in the business sense that it has on the bottom line. If there’s someone that happens to be watching us today and listening to this conversation who is on the bubble, sort of towing the line, but not quite sure how much they should invest himself/herself into the activity of coaching, what might you offer them as encouragement to push them that one little step further to get involved? I’d say step back and take a look at what really makes a difference in your organization and then figure out a way to move yourself into the circumstance where you can in fact help your people be successful. Not only will it be good for your organization and your company, it’ll make you feel very good about yourself as a leader and as an executive. Joe, time is almost gone. I’ve got one more question. When everything is said and done, when you step down as head and coach, when you’re no longer in the picture, how would you like for those individuals that you have coached over the years to remember you? I’d like them to sit back and say, “Joe Scarlett really made a difference to me.” Well, Joe, you made a difference to all of us today and I want you to know I appreciate you being here. We have a break to take and we’ll be back just in a minute for some closing comments on this program.