3 Questions To Ask Yourself Every Week

One of the challenges of leadership is learning how to bring correction to your team and instill confidence at the same time. If I just bring correction I can destroy their confidence. If I am too nice they may not get it. The answer is to train your team members to coach themselves.

The old saying of “practice makes perfect” is not true.

Practice without feedback does not help people grow. In fact, if you are practicing it the wrong way, you just get worse.

How do I teach my team to coach themselves?

I heard John Maxwell tell a story about Holly Warlick, coach of the University of Tennessee Ladies Volunteer basketball team.

Holly Warlick invited John to come into the locker room during halftime. John was looking forward to the half-time speech of one the most successful coaches ever, but she never said a word. Instead one of the players jumped up and wrote three questions on a white board.

1. What did we do right?
2. What did we do wrong?
3. What can we change?

The players began to coach themselves as they answered the three questions.

At that point Holly Warlick got up and said, “Ok, let’s go do it.” That was her entire half-time speech.

That was a light bulb moment for me.

From that point on, I began to meet with my team after the service and asked three questions.

1. What did we do right?
2. What did we do wrong?
3. How can we do it better?

It totally changed everything. My team began to grow as they coached themselves.

Nobody got offended during this coaching process because we built self-evaluation into the culture.

Leaders do not grow by accident. Without self-evaluation growth does not happen. You have to have a plan for growth.

Evaluate yourself. Start asking yourself these questions.

1. What did I do right?
2. What did I do wrong?
3. How can I do it better?

Begin to use these three questions after a service or event and see how your team will grow as they learn to identify what they did right, what did they do wrong and how it can be better.