But through that coaching he also showed them how to coach their people and teams, which made them much more effective managers and leaders. Time and time again, they note that whenever they face an interesting situation, they ask themselves, what would Bill do? And we realized, we do it, too. What would Bill do? How would the coach handle this situation?

This is critical for effective coaching; a good coach doesn’t hide the stuff that’s hard to talk about—in fact, a good coach will draw this out. He or she gets at the hard stuff.

He built his message on your capabilities and progress. This is a key aspect of delivering encouragement as a coach: it needs to be credible.

This is one example of the power of observation at work; listening, looking for patterns, assessing strengths and weaknesses.

Get the team right and you’ll get the issue right.