(By Randy Lane) The start of the NFL season reminds me of a story about famed football coach Vince Lombardi. In the 1960s, he used modeling to become one of the most successful coaches in sports history.
Lombardi had an epiphany while watching tapes with the team of plays that went wrong. Rather than trying to fix flawed plays, he told the players that they would only watch flawlessly executed plays from then on. He believed football players could achieve their potential by seeing themselves perform at their best.
The business, psychology, and education worlds widely practice modeling to accelerate growth. Teachers make their expectations for student performance clear through examples to help students at all levels of evolution learn.
Changing behavior is usually challenging. As a talent coach, you must see yourself less as a critiquing boss and more as a facilitator. Here are three simple modeling approaches to help air talent actualize their potential:
1. Modeling Audio
One of the most effective ways to help talent grow is to ask them to evaluate the audio of other shows. Exemplary audio from a top show illustrates coaching points like engaging storytelling or concise setups.
We also ask talent to evaluate audio from other shows that could be improved. It could be a flawed premise or a good premise that wasn’t well executed. Either way, putting talent in the coach’s seat helps them to improve their performance.
2. Examples
You can explain the 80-20 Rule of Teasing; talent will get some of it. However, they will understand it better by playing an example of a must-listen tease that would compel the audience to continue listening. It could be one of their teases or one from a show they respect.
In our character definition exercise with talent, we demonstrate the concept of skewed opposites (endearing vs. flawed characteristics) with examples of well-known characters like Elaine from Seinfeld or Walter White from Breaking Bad.
3. Analogies, Metaphors, and Stories
Rather than making points with dry information, creative people respond to and absorb more from mental pictures. For instance, when stressing the importance of setups and exits, you could use the analogy of how critical the takeoff and landing are in flights.
Successful modeling is not about telling talent how to improve but facilitating and modeling coaching points with audio, examples, and stories.
Randy Lane is the owner of the Randy Lane Company, which coaches and brands radio and television personalities, business professionals, sports personalities, entrepreneurs, and pop culture artists, helping them master communication skills to have an impact on their audiences. Read Randy’s Radio Ink archives here.
