In a given day there are no shortage of coaching moments.  If you manage even 1 person, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Every decision we make can be evaluated, reviewed and improved upon. In interviews, I’m often asked about my management style/approach. For the last 10 years, my answer has been consistent:

1. Inform: Provide your team member with all the information they need to make a good decision.
2. Recommend: Outline how you would tackle the problem. This needs to be done as “guiding” not dictating.
3. Empower: Despite your POV, empower them to make the decision. After all they have 2 critical pieces of the puzzle: 1, all the background info. 2, your point of view.
4. Support: Unless the decision they make is so far off base, support their decision…especially in PUBLIC when it comes under scrutiny.
5. Evaluate: Review the decision, how it was made, why they made, how it played out and how they’d improve on it in the future.

I don’t think there’s anything earth shattering there, but to consistently apply this maxim can be tough.  There are days I certainly fail at it.  The most critical part of this approach is #4.  Your team needs to know you have their back…that you won’t hang them out to dry or throw them under a bus.  Sometimes this can be challenging, especially when their decision is coming under fire in a public gathering.  But, this is the test of a good manager.

Public criticism offends not only the receivers, but the observers. No one wants to see another person publicly hung by someone too cowardly to address the issue one to one, face to face.

Credit for that great quote goes here.

I feel like that’s one of those obvious…basic…101 rules…that you learn at an early age. Heck, I can remember the rule being taught to me in Little League.  But, just because it’s a basic rule, like don’t swing on a 3-0 count unless you have the green light, doesn’t mean we always follow it.  I’m guilty of breaking the rule on occasion.  It’s so easy to do it when we’re all given a stage, a bullhorn and a distribution network to voice our opinions.  Just because we can do it, doesn’t mean we should.

Yesterday, I saw a classic case of poor coaching and the ego-centric world of blogging.  Sarah Perez, an “influential” blogger/writer/editor/etc. received a pitch from Yahoo!’s agency asking her to review their new platform in exchange for some amount of reciprocal coverage and impact at Yahoo!  This type of stuff happens all the time.  If your someone who blogs you’ll eventually get pitched.  From what I can tell from Sarah’s scathing post about the pitch, there were 3 problems with the pitch:

1. It was generic and over promissory - as such it felt dated
2. There was a typo – the agency wrote “Tech Crunch” as two words instead of one
3. She doesn’t seem to care for Yahoo!

I don’t envy the job of an analyst or reviewer. People send you their hopes and dreams, often in the form of a “product,” and your job is to be honest. It’s a relatively small world we live in. It’s not uncommon for the product’s owner/manufactuer to be a friend or colleague of the reviewer. This makes the situation even tougher. But, this personal relationship shouldn’t change the job of the reviewer or analyst. Their job is to tell a truthful story.

Here’s the thing about truth and honesty. The seem similar, but they mean 2 very different things.

Here’s an example:

A wife confronts her husband and asks “are you cheating on me with Lisa?” The husband replies truthfully, “no.” Had he replied honestly, he would have said, “no, but I am with Mary.”

People can tell the truth and be very dishonest at the same time. Lately, I’ve been noticing that reviewers, columnists, analysts, and the like are becoming more and more dishonest. It’s very concerning. We rely on these people to add clarity and separate fact from fiction. But, if they’re more focused on truth sans the honesty their work is compromised. I don’t want to get into names here, but suffice it to say, the people we’re talking about are reputable well known industry names.

Credibility takes a while to earn, but can disappear very quickly. As consumers and people become savvier they’re going to notice the lack of “full” and unbiased stories. They will start to call them out – which will be a hell of a lot of fun to observe, but will still be disheartening.

Analysts, reviewers, and the like your job is to tell the full story. Your job is to be truthful and honest. Your job is to lead us. Stop protecting companies and your friends/colleagues. Start, doing your job. If you don’t you may just find no one wants to listen to you…leaving you without a job.