How Coaching Improves Performance

Ricardo Lopes is an award-winning author, speaker, trainer, and coach at Advanced Leadership. Advanced Leadership is a creative and enthusiastic group that’s passionate about empowering businesses, and the people in them, to meet with greater success. It lends expertise and support in communications, training, employee engagement, and performance. In essence, it helps organizations, and the people in them, better communicate, collaborate, and generate extraordinary results, both within the organization and with their customers.  Ricardo has held several communications, training and development, and national sales development roles generating perennial record sales performances over multiple decades. Ricardo has coaching, speaking, and training accreditation from The John C. Maxwell Team and licensed access to its training materials. John C. Maxwell is a many time over best-selling author and is recognized internationally as one of the world’s top leadership and management development experts. Ricardo talks about coaching and how it helps improve performance.

Ricardo please tell me a little about you?

I’m a coach, speaker, and trainer at Advanced Leadership. We’re a learning and performance company that empowers organizations and the people in them, to better communicate, collaborate, and generate extraordinary results – with their peers, customers, and the teams they’re privileged to lead.  I’ve worked for almost 30 years in the business and corporate worlds, contributing in several roles such as a national business development coach and communications specialist more recently, and as a sales manager, sales officer trainer, and communication consultant, etc. prior to that.

How do you help executives increase their unique value proposition?

I work with individuals to identify the strengths that make them unique and help them play to them.  No one does you as well as you do you.  When you contribute to areas of strength, results come more naturally to you and you can accomplish far more in that area than someone who’s struggling or not engaged in the task at hand. The trick is to challenge yourself continually, by applying those strengths to new challenges, to ensure you keep growing.  

How important is it for an executive to communicate effectively?

I can’t think of anything MORE important.  But let’s be clear about something, according to the Mehrabian’s 7-38-55 Rule of Personal Communication, words only make up 7% of any message. Voice tonality and body language contribute 38% and 55%, respectively, to the intended meaning of a message.  This is why you can watch two people relay the same request with great variation in how people respond.  There are a number of leadership skills that executives need to develop to better influence, inspire, and generate results.  These are the soft skills that are mandatory and are very accurate predictors of how far any leader will go. No one cares how smart you are, the question is, do you have the leadership skills to influence, inspire, and generate results with a group of uniquely skilled individuals around you?

Is it important to get a little deeper when networking or should we just get the business card?

Less is more.  Meet with fewer people, get to know them, and build trust.  We do business with and create business opportunities for, people we know, like, and trust.  You can have the greatest skills or widget to sell, but if you fail to develop that connection, your business card will meet with someone’s wastepaper basket.  I might be showing my age but I love business cards.  I think they say something about a person.  I like to write two or three things that make that person unique right on the card when I get home and save them. You can only discover that information after investing some time with them. I organize them by groups of people I affiliate with and like to flip through them before I attend an event.  Even with the best of intentions, it’s hard to remember every detail when you meet so many people.  It takes a little bit of effort to flip through these mini cue cards, but the reward is seeing the smile of appreciation on that person’s face when you’ve remembered them and made them feel special.

How important is it for an executive to have balance in their lives?

Very Important. Balance brings a diversity of experience and thought that makes you more valuable to the organization. Balance makes sure you have the energy to endure the crunch. Balance ensures you are clear about your ‘why’.  When you clearly identify what you value outside of work, and allow yourself to participate in those activities or the lives of others, they become inspirations.  They help you find the last bit of gas in the tank that you need, to do what you must, in order to provide the means to continue to enjoy those moments outside of work.

You were in financial services for more than two decades give me some personal advice on finance?

First save, save, save.  Deduct right off your paycheck and learn to live within what’s left.

Second, there’s a great little button on most income tax software, “How much can I borrow such that my tax refund will pay off the loan”.  Now take your refund and pay off the loan you just took to grow your savings.  Let’s say you borrowed five grand and deposited it to your RRSP savings, now you have five grand plus all the growth it’s going to generate between now and the day in retirement when you take it out. All this, for what it cost you in nominal interest charges incurred from the day you borrowed and the day your tax refund was applied against the loan.

How is your coaching unique and helps executives feeling more empowered?

I love that word! If I could describe what we do in three words, it would be “Authentically you, empowered”. I would say my approach to coaching draws a clear line between coaching and mentoring.  They are not one and the same.  It’s troubling to watch pairings of individuals where the expectation is that a poor millennial is supposed to somehow follow, and start emulating, a decorated baby boomer or GenX for example.  I’ve met with success in leadership positions driving sales etc., but it would be a less productive coaching session if I tried to grow a mini-me.  What worked for me played to my strengths and worked in a time and place.  Even if I executed exactly as I did some years ago, the dynamics and circumstances could have changed and hence the same approach, by the same person, executed the same way, isn’t guaranteed to work.  I encourage clients to identify their strengths and play to them, this generates small and large wins that build confidence and momentum.

One other unique aspect I would say is addressing belief paradigms and the battle between the conscious and unconscious mind.  The unconscious is supposed to protect us and keep us safe from the unknown or re-experiencing something that put us in harm’s way.  Sometimes, those belief paradigms serve us well, other times they’re holding us back, and we need someone outside our head to encourage us to push past them. Once we’ve pushed past them and succeed, our subconscious accepts a new normal and will no longer generate the very real physical manifestation of pain, anxiety, etc. in its attempts to discourage us from going for it!

What other value do you bring to help authentically empower others?

I like to describe our company as a passionate and enthusiastic bunch who enjoy empowering organizations and the people in them, to meet with greater success.  How we help, is by lending support and expertise in four key areas; communications, training, employee engagement, and performance.  What we do essentially is to help organizations and the people in them better communicate, collaborate, and generate extraordinary results, both within the organization and with their customers.  As an example, to kick off the new year in 2019, we’re doing training for entrepreneurs and small business that is open to the general public.  We’re helping them craft messages to effectively promote their business in public and close the sale while building their confidence. Many wonderful people are great artisans, service people, or craftspeople, but they are not salespeople and may never be. When you get big enough, you can pass on promoting your business in public and closing the sale of your widget or book to someone else. Until then, you need to get it done yourself, or risk being one of 50% of businesses who fail within the first five years. Often, the failure has nothing to do with the service or product they provide, the challenge is their inability to sell it.  It’s also heart-wrenching to meet a perennial networker whose own inner circle is hard-pressed to describe what that person does!  Even with the best intentions, their inner circle doesn’t know how to promote their fellow networker because they don’t have clear messaging regarding just what they do or sell.  Our event will empower these folks to conquer their fear of public speaking, promote their business and close the sale. Together we’ll craft engaging value propositions, elevator speeches, and on stage / public presentations in a 3-day over 4-weeks experiential learning workshop.

How do you balance food, faith, finance, and family in the 21st century?

Balance to me means you acknowledge the importance of different aspects of a full, and well-functioning life.  That involves setting goals and executing them in each area.  Food is your body’s enricher.  Garbage in, garbage out. Plan and do the work to eat well.  Faith, if you’re blessed with it, will help you better appreciate you’re a spiritual being having a human experience, not the other way around.  That said, take care of your body such that you have a place to carry your inner being, while having the strength and wellness to do, and experience, all that you can on this journey.  Finance is an enabler; it’s not the most important thing in one’s life, but it’s right up there next to oxygen! Family love you, often unconditionally.  It’s hard to find a stronger set of raving fans.  Schedule time together, even if it’s the most mundane “I drive you to x event”, and “mom drives you to y event”.  Put down the smartphone and talk to each other, be present.  Schedule couple time/family time with as much commitment as you would the most important thing you have to do because it is.