Your employees probably think that you, as their manager, already know how to do everything and are only looking to catch their mistakes and reprimand them or make corrections. This is (or at least should be) furthest from the truth. While it is your job to catch their mistakes, it is not your job to make them your employees feel bad about them.

Instead of criticizing, you should be correcting. In correcting their mistakes, you should be taking the opportunity to coach your employees so they can grow. The stronger you make communication skills, the more effective you will be at constructive criticism – or taking a mistake and turning it into a positive learning experience.

There will, of course, be a time when an employee or team member makes a really bad move – one where discipline is appropriate. For the most part, however, you’ll need to keep in mind that we’re all human and that we all make mistakes. Is the problem you’ve encountered something new; something that can be adjusted; something that you can all learn from? If so, take the opportunity to coach your employees.

Put the skills they already think you have to work and share your knowledge. The more you share, the better each team member will become, and the more likely it is you’ll all be able to work as a team further on down the road.

Remember, negative criticism only encourages dissent. Positive criticism and coaching means increased productivity and a happier workforce.

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

When an employee is struggling, do you offer tips and advice? What about when you assign a team member a new project? Do you just hand it to him and let him figure out the instructions on his own? Coaching your employees is a fine art, and if you do so incorrectly you’ll be left with a rather ugly mess in your lap at the end of the day.

Today I offer three quick tips for effective leadership and coaching of your employees:

1. Ask lots of questions. Asking questions allows you to judge the skill levels of your employees but should be done tactfully so as not to embarrass someone who doesn’t know an answer. Ask open ended questions as opposed to yes or no questions. Yes or no questions almost always lead to disaster, as no one wants to answer “no” and risk sounding silly.

2. Are you offering constructive criticism? Stop before you criticize. Are you going to formulate a critique based on the fact that your employee is doing something incorrectly, or is it simply not the way you would accomplish the task? Even if your employee is doing something wrong you can’t just dive in and rip a project apart. You need to formulate a plan for constructively pointing out his errors while offering tips for correction or a more effective strategy. In short, no yelling, grumbling, or making people feel bad.

3. Remember that everyone is different. It has been scientifically proven that there are a number of different learning styles. Some people need to hear instructions, while others are better reading them. Others may need to experience a task first-hand in order to remember how to accomplish it. Keep in mind that you can’t use the same coaching strategy for each employee. You’re going to have to get to know each of your team members individually in order to determine which method of coaching will work best.

Keeping these things in mind as you coach will enable you to make a better connection with your employees. When you are able to connect with them, you’ll find that jobs will get done faster and with fewer errors.

Thanks again,

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

When you have a coaching session with one of your staff, how do you wrap up the session?

Do you give a summary of what was said and who is doing what? Then, do you write the action points in an email or document?

If you do, I recommend that you flip this on it’s head and ask your member of staff to give the summary and to take ownership for the whole process.

Why?

Here are 3 good reasons:

1. It encourages ownership. You are not there to wipe their backsides. You are there as a coach and a mentor. It’s "their session" really.

2. It trains the member of staff to really listen all throughout the session. If they know that they are going to do the summary then they will really listen in for that if nothing else!

3. It reduces your workload.

I see all too many managers make the summary, write the action points, follow up on action points - my advice is to STOP this right now.

Create the ownership and enable your member of staff to do this - it will pay big dividends.

Live, love and laugh!

Sean Mc