It takes a special person to be a great coach. Not everyone you meet during your career as a manager is going to be open to new experiences and you’re going to have to find unique and creative ways to show them that higher degrees of learning are available. You’ll also have to determine who is really serious about learning as opposed to just looking for something else to do.

So what are the main components necessary to prompt learning in the workplace? There are three main criteria:

• First, your employee must have a desire to learn. The more he “wants” his education or strives towards advancement the more open he’ll be to classes, information, and the recommendations you make while coaching.
• Second, there has to be an opportunity for that employee to learn. Willingness means nothing if there are no classes, reimbursement programs, or ways for your employees to obtain the courses they want or need.
• Finally, there needs to be a certain degree of competence. If you promise to coach and employee you need to make sure you have the resources and education you need to meet your goals.

Put these three components together and you have a recipe for successful coaching. Does your organisation have a formal coaching program for willing employees or are managers responsible for taking on the task themselves?

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

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

A few years ago I came upon what I thought was a unique situation. A friend of mine was the head of a department and spent tons of time training and coaching his new employees. During one of our conversations he began complaining about one of his employees – one who seemed to have a lower level of performance than normal.

The first thing I asked him was whether or not he had taken the time to coach this employee. He was shocked and later admitted that he thought the need to coach his employee had ended with his initial training.

So here’s the problem. You need to determine whether your employee needs to be counseled or coached. If your employee has personal or motivational problem you may need to counsel him or her – find out what’s wrong and how you can help to change the situation.

Coaching comes into play when you have an employee that is making mistakes and turning in shoddy work for no apparent reason. You need to determine what training sequence was overlooked or what skill wasn’t completely honed before letting that employee loose on his own. You then need to coach your employee until he knows how to do the job right.

There’s nothing worse than thinking you’re doing something correctly only to find out you’ve missed an important step and created additional work. Be cautious and understanding when approaching your employee to offer this additional coaching – he or she may not have even realized there was a problem to start with. If something was overlooked in training it is likely as much your fault as theirs.

Have you ever had a situation where forgetting to cover a key point in training caused you to have to go back and “re-coach” someone later on? We’re all human and we all make mistakes. The key is owning up to those mistakes and taking the time to refine your own coaching skills!

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

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

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