Over-prepared and not listening carefully

W20

Over-prepared and not listening carefully

D3 — Supporting

Primary: Q1 — Request: Be CuriousQ2 — Discover/Negotiate: Establish Ground for ActionLeaves Q1 early

This session creates the space for your coachee to see how they can connect more effectively with their customers. Your role is to help them observe what is happening — not to tell them what to change.

1. Diagnosis

Competent agent has problems when their call preparation does not align with the customer's need.

2. Behaviour Observations

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

Agent is very competent on their topic and can usually handle any queries.
The customer changes the request to be more about the organisation than the specific issue.
The customer casts doubt on the agent's credibility as they work for such an incompetent company.
The agent does not recognise their negative emotional state.

3. Session Objective

Recognising that a call is paralysing action is enough to take action. Staff may have difficulty naming the emotion they feel when they come under attack. Focussing on naming the feeling can detract from identifying and taking action. Session objective is to help them recognise that their emotional state has closed down their thinking, then build a set of actions for when this happens.

4. Session Tactics

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

Find a call where the agent is carrying out their call preparation when it has become obvious that the plan is not addressing the customer's needs. Play to the point where the customer makes it clear their request is something other than what is prepared. Discuss what the agent feels at this point — focus on what actions they felt were available. Introduce the 'big red button' metaphor: once the agent has identified they are in trouble, they will not have the mental space to improvise a new direction in the moment. They need a pre-agreed fallback course of action.

5. GROW Experiments

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

Experiment 1

Have the agent think about how they will recognise when they have lost control. Have them choose a physical action as a cue to push the 'big red button'.

Experiment 2

Discuss replatforming as the first part of the red button action: 1) Fixing immediate problem 2) Fixing the consequences 3) Fixing the institution — focus on what the customer cares about. Write specifically what action they will take at the big red button.

Behaviour Tags

Over-prepares and doesn't adapt