"My responsibility is leadership, and the minute I get negative, that is going to have an influence on my team". - Don Shula

Webster defines coaching as; "to instruct, direct, or prompt". After reading that, I started to wonder how most people who are coached on the sales floor would define it. Coaching; "The time of the day when my manager tells me everything I did wrong or forgot to do". That is not coaching for performance -- that's intimidation.

I have worked in and been around retail stores, call centers, return centers, and customer service in general, for over 20 years. I am always amazed at what some managers/leaders think coaching is. My company actually does coaching for performance seminars. In fact, when we first started, we didn't offer coaching as an option. However, after doing role plays in sales seminars that include a customer, sales person and a coach role play, we realized there was a big need for training centered around coaching that would result in improved performance.