Why Pros Always Have a Coach

admin June 4, 2016 Comments Off on Why Pros Always Have a Coach

Don’tcha think that professional basketball players would outgrow their need for a coach? Here’s why they don’t and why you need one as well.Why Pros Have a Coach

Seriously, by the time pros get to the bigs; they’ve played bitty ball, high school ball, usually college ball and now professional. Yet, every dang one of them still has a coach. Every one. Don’tcha think they know the basics by now?

And what about those pro coaches? They can’t play the game like Kobe Bryant or Byron James can. Why does a professional like the pro players or you, as a business owner, need a coach?

Here are five reasons you need to be a coach for your team.

Coaches Have Skills Different Than Players: Pro coaches can’t play the game like players, just like you can’t do the graphics like you’re prepress person. That’s because you don’t know what they know. But here’s the kicker: they don’t know what you know either. So, working together, you are much stronger than allowing the prepress person to go over in the corner by themselves.

Pro coaches see the big picture and help players with a successful strategy. Tactics is making a jump shot from the top of the key or imposing a file. Tactics is the amount of time it takes to do a task while strategy involves which tasks to do in what order and how long one should allow on a task before crying “uncle” and getting management involved.

But coaches must know tactics or the basics of the game. They need to know how dribble even though they are not as proficient as the players. Likewise, coaches need to have familiarization with software such as InDesign although no one expects them to be as proficient as a full time prepress person (help on this and other topics, by the way, is available for coaches through our CPrint Academy).

Coaches Are Unifiers: Pro coaches always look to the big picture; in their case, not only the scoreboard and time clock but decide who to play at what times in order to get the best results. Leaving big picture decisions up to workers without direction is akin to dying by a thousand razor cuts. “Put in an hour on this project and get back with me.” Perhaps it’s time to put the elephant job aside and put an hour in on the smaller getter done jobs and then go back to the biggie.

Coaches Are Trainers: not in the sense that they tape the legs of the players; but in assuring the players have the training they need. In baseball, sometimes the managers decide the players need to go down to the minors for a while to perfect a skill. In our shops, the coach needs to make sure the employees have the opportunity to improve on their already perfected skills like color management or how to deal with customers. (Yes, CPrint Academy is a source for such training as well as many other resources available to you.)

How do you know what they need if it’s something that’s not obvious? Ask them. That’s what a performance review is really all about. It’s not about saving up all the criticisms (you don’t get to work on time) until you explode. 

Coaches Are Disciplinarians: discipline is doing what’s important; not what’s most fun. If a player is not complying with team rules, then it’s up to us to attack the issue now not save it up for an annual review that most never get around to doing. (Great source of how to do this is our resource 4 Steps to Confront Bad Behavior, $20 at https://crouser.com/shop/4-steps-to-confront-bad-behavior/)

Coaches Are Leaders: it’s the difference in a commander saying, “You guys go take that hill” and “Follow me.” In our world, coaches need to know production, sales and finance and be willing to see that the necessary tasks are being done in each, every day.

Your team members not only need a job, a professional position in which they are paid, but they also need a coach to orchestrate the team. That’s you. Owners who are actively involved in the business who not only keep an eye on the strategy for team success; but who also are not afraid to unify the team under their direction, train and see that others get needed training, discipline when needed, and lead the team to success. Lacking that, no team will reach the success that they could achieve.

Owners Need Coaches as well: CPrint offers owners a coaching environment. For instance, I earned an undergraduate degree in accounting, hold a Masters in Business Administration and spent twenty years running a printing business. Oh, yes, I also spent seven years teach Printing Plant management part-time at the college level as well as operations management on the graduate level. So when we put what you know with what we know, that forms a powerful combination and allows you to make better decisions and attain better success.

No, we don’t know what works for you; but we have seen what works for hundreds of printing companies throughout the US since 1985. For more information on how we might be of help, email me at tom@cprint.com and let’s chat. There’s no cost or obligation.

Coaches don’t know what players know. Fact is, coaches aren’t supposed to have all the skills. Coaches have different skills though and are able to see the big picture and help with strategies as well as tactics. That’s why Kobe and Byron James still have coaches even after stellar careers.

Think you could use a professional business coach? Message me at tom@cprint.com and let’s chat.

Tom Crouser

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