Confidence Activities

Practicing and receiving feedback are crucial for building confidence. Feedback progressions involve structured feedback formats that focus on the positive aspects of someone's practice before addressing areas for improvement. By creating a positive association with practice, people are more likely to engage in it willingly. Feedback progressions typically start with four sessions of positive feedback, then gradually introduce feedback on areas for improvement. It's important to use words like "opportunity" instead of "constructive feedback" to avoid negative associations. Practicing leads to improvement, as shown in a story about a CEO who initially dismissed the value of coaching but later became a client after realizing the importance of practice. When it comes to confidence, again, repetition and practice are critical. Now, we've stated that enough. Let's introduce you to something called feedback progressions. Feedback progressions can be delivered by you, or it can certainly be delivered in the supplemental coaching session between peers. Feedback progressions are structured feedback formats. Let me explain. When somebody is practicing, ask them questions such as, what do you think you did well? Here are the two things I thought you did well. Now, ultimately, somebody will say, well, wait a minute, what about the things they need to improve? Oh, we'll get to those. Let's just build some momentum here. See, when people feel good about practicing, they'll do more of it. When people associate practice with constructive feedback and feeling bad about themselves, if it has that impact, most people won't practice willingly, meaning the practice suffers. The repetition isn't as successful as it could be. So feedback progressions are typically four sessions of just positive feedback, focusing on the good things they did, the effort they're making. Then when you start to introduce the feedback where they can improve, stay away from the word constructive or feedback. Embed the words opportunity. Here's the opportunity where I think you can improve. And then ask a question. Hearing that, what are you going to do to practice that? What can we do together to move in that direction? See, activities, as simple as it sounds, are often not facilitated by leaders in coaching sessions. When somebody practices, the better off they get. Let me tell you a quick story. I was doing a presentation in front of a bunch of CEOs, and a CEO put me on the spot and he said, you know, I don't know if all of our people have time for this. And he went on and on and really kind of diffused the value of coaching in front of this room. And I smiled and I kind of knew where he was going. And I said to him, I said, well, give me a situation. He said, well, look, I've got an experienced sales team. Why do they need to practice before a sales call? I said, okay. Could I challenge your premise? I said, yep. You have to be honest in the moment and you can't fudge answers because everybody's looking at you and me right now. And everybody started laughing. He said, sure, go ahead. I said, you have a deal in your business. What is your business? He said, industrial leasing. I said, what's a big, big deal in your business? He said, $3 to $5 million. We do heavy, you know, equipment leasing. I said, awesome. I said, let's say you have a presentation, a closing presentation, whether that's right for your business, but let's just call it that. He said, okay. I said, according to you, your people don't need to practice because they're experienced, correct? He said, that's right. I said, awesome. Your competitors showing up, conducting eight 15-minute practice sessions, anticipating objections about price and value, testimonials, warranty information, and they have practiced anywhere from eight to 12 times only for 15 minutes weekly or 15 minutes per practice session. Honestly, did your confidence just go up, stay the same, or go down? And he kind of smiled at me, looked up, and started to think like he was up into the sky pondering, the guy next to him elbowed him and said, I think you just answered his question. Everybody broke out laughing. Later they became a client. The reason I share that with you is I shot a hole in his confidence. What it really showed us was his confidence was assumptive. When you practice, you will get better.