by Jake Mannino and Lyssa deHart
Published on August 24, 2026
A year ago, Jake shifted the way he led his sales team of 12 people. The team was mostly new, there had just been a big organizational shuffle, and the team had reformed. The organizational goals were big, audacious, one might even say. And almost immediately, people started coming to him with predictions.
The customers will never buy this much! They're going to go to the competitors. These numbers are impossible; there is no way we can do these numbers!
Can't, won't, never, too much. It'll just never work.
And, research has consistently shown us that our ability to predict accurately is, well, not that great. Plus, highly negative predictions amplify the fight, flight, freeze, and freak out responses in the brain, upping cortisol and reducing our capacity to reason.
Jake calls this Red Path thinking — and here's what's interesting about it. Nobody on that team thought they were being negative; they thought they were being realistic. What they had done was pull out their crystal ball, and the crystal ball said: "it's not gonna happen."
But a prediction of failure isn't actual data. It's just a story you're telling before the story even gets going, and if you believe it without being curious, it may just take you exactly where you don't want to go.
The question that shifts the focus
So instead of arguing with the predictions — which, honestly, never works — Jake started asking a different question of his team.
"What would happen if we met our goals?"
That's it, Jake calls this the Green Path. It's not about polly anna positive thinking, it's not the motivational poster, "You got this!" stuff. It just moving someone's attention from the brick wall they're staring at, towards what's on the other side of that brick wall. What would it look like if we did this thing?
The person still has to do the work. But, that's going to happen anyway, there is an organizational goal. The question shifts the focus and the mindset. We're going to work, but we will work with purpose or we can work with a whole lot of bad attitude.
Coach Training Helps
Here's where the coaching frameworks came in. Jake had earned his PCC coaching credential, and he made a deliberate decision — he wasn't going to keep his coaching skills in a separate box, just for coaching clients. He was going to use them to lead his team. And once he started showing up that way, he noticed what was missing in many of the rooms he sat in — sales calls, internal planning meetings, all of it. People weren't listening; they weren't asking good questions; instead, they were focused on and talking about speeds and feeds, features, the product — making statements at the customer instead of getting curious about them.
So the team started practicing something simple, the WAIT principle. Why Am I Talking?
And reframing their statements into questions. Mostly using "what, when, where, and how." They held "why" a little more loosely — because why can put people on the defensive depending on the question. "Why did you do that?" lands more like an accusation, even when you don't mean it that way. But "what do you like about that solution?" — even asking this about a competitor's product — gets a customer talking. And, in describing what they like, they often start telling you what they don't, which means if we're listening, we will get some important data.
Part of the thing that makes asking questions useful is that when you ask a useful question and then actually WAIT, the silence that follows can lead to deeper insights. That sort of silence is the sound of the other person thinking. That's them figuring out their own what, how, when. If you can just zipper your mouth, they'll do the work.
And notice what all of this is — these are coach behaviors, not sales tricks. Listening more than you speak. Asking the question that invites awareness in the other person instead of the question that shows off what you already know. Holding silence instead of rescuing everyone from it and filling the void. Staying curious about the person, not just their problem. And maybe the hardest one — not solving, stop the advice monster. And, really inviting people make their own connections about what seems meaningful to them, because those connections are the ones that will stick for them. Jake didn't invent any of this, he applied his training to his real work situation. Nobody listens like this by accident, they practice, practice, practice.
It's hard to trust someone you don't like. It's hard to like someone you don't know.
Jake built a simple model around the idea of: know, like, trust.
You can't really get to liking someone, until you actually get to know them. Not know of them — know them, that's a real distinction. And you can't get to trust until they like you. So the team took org charts — customers and internal mapping — and got honest with themselves about the relationships they had with each other and with their customers. Red, yellow, or green. Where is this relationship, really?
Then the work became clear. Not a sole focus on "hit the number." But rather a path to move relationships from red to yellow and from yellow to green.
The salesperson who couldn't see his own team
Lyssa was working with an executive coaching client a while back — a leader whose team wasn't cohesive, wasn't clicking. This person had been a brilliant salesperson, with the company their whole career, now stepping into bigger leadership.
And when the conversation turned to customers, they lit up. I would do anything for my customers. They knew whose kids played football, T-ball, soccer. They checked in. Not just for the sale — for the person.
Then the question: what about your team?
And the light bulb went on. I don't do that with my team.
This is the failure that happens pretty much everywhere. We take a fantastic individual contributor, someone the customers love, and we promote them into leadership — and we don't give them any or enough tools. All that curiosity, all that care, and it never occurred to them to point it at the people sitting next to them.
Jake puts it this way: if you build a house and you don't pour the foundation or footer well, then whatever you build on top isn't going to be stable. Your team is foundational. How you show up with your customer is downstream of how you show up with your own people.
What actually happened
So — the year-long experiment. Twelve people on the team, big audacious goals, a room full of "we can never do this."
Jake kept a log every week. Fifty-two weeks of getting to know people, talking about their hobbies, values, what their kids were into, who loves to cook, who loves to travel, and all the things that were them. Building know-like-trust within the team first, then applying that same way of showing up to customers. More time on site, more real conversations with customers, and way more asking questions and listening.
They finished the fiscal year at over 150% of the goal. What had felt impossible turned out to be possible.
And here's the part we need to come back to. Earlier in the year, Jake watched other leaders grind through pipeline reviews, asking why we aren't making the number — so focused on the number that they missed the relational elements that actually generate it. The number is an outcome, or a trailing indicator of the actions, the number can't be the sole focus. That's overwhelming and makes it too easy to go down red paths. What creates any outcome are the actions, the thinking about what to prioritize, the relationships. Whether we do well with these element or not impacts the outcome. We want people on the teams who feel seen and heard, so that they can do the same with their customers, who we want to also feel seen and heard.
Nobody on that team hit 150% by staring 150% in the eyes, everyone was blinking.
So maybe the question isn't what's your number this year. Maybe it's this: who on your team do you actually know? Who do you need to talk to and get to know? How are you modeling the relational skills you need your team to demonstrate? And, how are you supporting the important impact of focusing on the right things for long term success?
Start there. The number tends to take care of themselves.
By Lyssa deHart, LICSW, MCC, BCC and Jake Mannino PCC, MBA for NEXGEN Executive Coaching Academy
NEXGEN Executive Coaching Academy was founded in 2026 by Lyssa deHart (LICSW, MCC) and Jake Mannino (MBA, PCC) to address a specific gap in the professional coaching education market: the absence of programs that combine ICF-credentialed coach training with practical business-building skills.
According to the World Economic Forum, over 92 million jobs may be displaced by automation by 2030 — accelerating demand for human-centered skills like executive coaching.
NEXGEN's programs are designed specifically for accomplished working professionals who want to become credentialed ICF executive coaches and build sustainable coaching businesses — without leaving their current careers to do it.
Disclaimer: This article was originally published on LinkedIn on August 24, 2026.
Original LinkedIn article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/beyond-number-how-coaching-skills-vfqqc
