1. Diagnosis

Agent is unwilling to accept the Reality of the situation and will not admit to the possibility that there are things that are not perfect in some aspect of their call behaviour.

2. Behaviour Observations

What you might see or hear that points to this pattern.

• Agent agrees that a behaviour is important but says they do it already.
• Agent is happy to write a WILL experiment but cannot accept the implication that their REALITY is not accurate.
• Agent tends to blame the customer for breakdowns in the conversation rather than take responsibility.

3. Session Objective

This agent is likely someone who has learned that it is bad to not be perfect at everything. For some agents, accepting an imperfection feels like accepting a permanent truth about who they are. They haven't yet separated what they do from who they are. This person often spends a lot of energy defending their position regardless of facts. The main objective is to help the agent see that unless they can admit that some things they do are not perfect, they will never improve, but that improvement is possible.

4. Session Tactics

How to prepare for and structure the 45-minute call review.

Tactic 1: Find something that the agent does well but infrequently. By showing them what they did well and then highlighting another conversation where they did not do that, they are placed in a position of having to accept that their successful interaction was wrong/special. Rejecting already offered praise makes rejection of the acceptance of the need for change harder. Tactic 2: Sometimes it can be useful to directly address the emotions that personal acceptance of a substandard delivery create. Finding something the staff member does better now than they did before can show them that change is possible and therefore the old way was not 'them'.

5. GROW Experiments

Experiments the coachee might choose to try. These are offers, not prescriptions — the coachee selects what feels right for them.

Behaviour Tags