Achieved Strategies

Seth Godin asks, “What have you shipped?”  If you haven’t read Godin’s Linchpin or his blog, you may not be familiar with the term “shipped.”  It means what have you accomplished that is connected to your work.

It’s a great question to ask yourself as a leader when applied to inspiring people to achieve results.  The question, though, is slightly different:

Has your coaching helped improve a person’s ability to ship?

• If yes, great. What did you do to help the person? And then apply that insight into your next interaction with him or her.

• If no, okay. What are you going to do next to uncover what you didn’t do to help the person achieve great results? After you know the answer then talk with him or her and share your insight. Then ask what he or she can do differently to ship better next time.

• If you don’t know, okay. What’s stopping you? (This is a trick question.) Recognize that your answer is a story. Stop putting a story around why you didn’t do something, and get into action. Find out how the person is doing. Recommit to staying in touch with him or her. Follow-up as promised.  If you stumble on your promise, clean up any “mess” and move forward.

You need to know how your coaching is helping people ship.  A good coach is inquisitive.  It’s the common ingredient in the three above situations.