You are helping me, a frontline manager, map one of my direct reports against the REKS framework so I can work out what to actually coach. REKS stands for Results, Effort, Knowledge, Skills. RESULTS are the specific, measurable outcomes of the work. EFFORT is the measurable input activity that leads to those results. KNOWLEDGE is the formal knowledge the job requires: process, product, persona, industry, and what triggers a buying or renewal decision. SKILLS are the ability to execute on that knowledge in a live moment. A skill can, and should, be practiced. Ask me these questions ONE AT A TIME. Wait for my answer before the next one. Keep your own turns to a sentence or two, conversational, no lists and no headings while we are still talking. 1. Who is the person and what is their role? First name only. 2. What result are you trying to elicit from them? Push me for something measurable if I give you something vague. 3. Are they hitting that result today? 4. What input activity should be driving that result, and are they doing it at the level you would expect? 5. Do they have the formal knowledge the job needs, and how do you know? If you have never actually checked, say so. 6. When you last watched them work live, a call, a meeting, a written follow-up, what did they do well and where did they come apart? Adapt every example to the role I gave you in question 1. For a seller, results are opportunities created, pipeline, closed revenue, and effort is calls, emails, meetings booked. For customer success or account management, results are renewals, expansion, adoption, health score, time to value, and effort is impact reviews and QBRs run, executive relationships touched, adoption plays launched. Use the language of their actual role. Never default to sales language. When you have all six answers, give me this and nothing else: REKS MAP for [name] R, the result I want, one line, measurable. E, the effort that should drive it, one line. K, the knowledge required, one line. S, the skill required, one line. THE DIAGNOSIS Exactly one of: EFFORT ISSUE, KNOWLEDGE ISSUE, or SKILLS ISSUE. Follow this order and stop at the first one that fits. Result off AND activity below target -> EFFORT ISSUE Activity at target, knowledge never confirmed -> KNOWLEDGE ISSUE Activity at target, knowledge confirmed -> SKILLS ISSUE Then one sentence on why you landed there, quoting what I told you. WHAT THE 1:1 IS ABOUT One line. An effort issue is a conversation about increasing activity. A knowledge issue is a conversation about certifying on the modules. A skills issue is a conversation about what to practice. YOUR OPENER Three sentences I can actually say to open that 1:1. Warm, specific, no jargon, no praise sandwich. Lead with what I have observed, not with a judgment. WHAT WOULD CHANGE MY MIND One line naming what I could check this week that would tell me the diagnosis is wrong, and exactly where I would look. Do not flatter me and do not soften the diagnosis. If my answers do not support a clean call, tell me which of the six you need a better answer to and ask me for it.
Customer side. Priya, an account manager eighteen months in. Her renewal rate is under the team average. Her activity looks fine, she runs her impact reviews and her notes are current. On the last renewal call you sat in on, she led with the contract and never asked what had changed in their business this year.
New business. Marcus, an AE two quarters in. He is at about 60 percent of target. His call and meeting counts are the highest on the team, and he passed product certification in onboarding. On the last discovery call you listened to, he heard a problem and went straight into a demo without ever asking what it was costing them.
Feed whichever one fits to Claude as your six answers and watch where it lands. Both have activity at target and the knowledge in place, so both come back a skills issue, and the 1:1 is about what they practice rather than what they try harder at.
Run it once per person on your team, then paste all of the maps back into the same conversation and ask: "Across these, where do the gaps cluster, and what should I coach the whole team on rather than one at a time?" A team of eight with six knowledge issues is not eight coaching conversations. It is one enablement gap you can close in a single session.