A Coaching Model Created by Frank Owiredu-Yeboa
(Business Coach, GHANA)
Introduction
The Collins English dictionary defines fuel as a substance…that provides heat or power when burned. Wikipedia describes fuel as any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as heat or to be used for work.
In the corporate world, many employees and business owners are faced with challenges/ obstacles that make achieving and improving on their targets look ‘impossible’.
Some of the causes of these challenges are;
These challenges tend to demotivate employees and business owners, drain their energies, and make achieving those targets daunting.
The FUEL model is designed to give employees and business owners the necessary energy, power, and clarity to manage their day-to-day activities and focus on achieving and improving on their targets.
Find
If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere. – Henry Kissinger
This famous quotation speaks to how many organizations, small business owners, and employees lose it when it comes to target/ goal setting. In Find, one must be clear about what one wants to achieve at the end of the period. Without a clear target and focus, it is difficult to assess or determine if there was an improvement in your performance or not.
For employees in an organization, Find, will mean being involved in setting targets. Even if one is not involved, it will help if the basis for the target is explained and accepted.
For business owners, Find, will be setting a realistic target for the period taking into consideration the previous target.
Typical questions for discussions will include;
Understand
You don’t need strength to let go of something. What you really need is understanding.
Guy Finley
Once the target is set and very clear to all, the next most important thing to do is to understand what it will take to achieve the targets. Without a proper understanding of why one needs to achieve the target, its implementation will suffer.
Understanding the target also means, knowing it is achievable and having a clear strategy to achieving it with in-built contingencies. Typical questions for exploration will include;
Execute
Execution is everything. John Doerr
Execution, as captured by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan with Charles Burch on the cover of their book, is the ‘discipline of getting things done. Now that you have accepted the target as realistic, achievable, and understood what it will take to get it done, you must then put the plan into execution so you can achieve it.
Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, and Jim Huling in the book The 4 Disciplines of Execution identified the following as helpful in the execution of a plan to achieve any goal/ target.
Typical questions to ensure execution will include;
Leverage
It is much easier to put existing resources to better use, than to develop resources where they do not exist.― George Soros
The oxford dictionary defines leverage as ‘use (something) to maximum advantage’. After going through the process, the most important outcome is to document insights and find ways to use these insights to improve on other areas of your personal and professional life.
Typical questions for reflection will include;
Conclusion
At the end of the period, the cycle begins, but this time with insights from the prior period. When this is used to improve the process, there will be a consistent improvement in achieving and exceeding the target with the outcome of improving the personal and professional life of the individual and the profitability of the organization.
This process can also be used in other areas of life apart from the corporate environment.
References
Bossidy, L., Charan, R. and Burck, C., 2017. Execution. [Place of publication not identified]: Skillsoft Ireland Limited.
McChesney, C., Covey, S. and Huling, J., n.d. Summary of The 4 disciplines