Coaching has long been seen as the best way to progress your team’s skills and talents. If you’ve ever been coached effectively, you will know the great effect it can have.

So how do actually set about carrying it out so that you gain your team member’s full buy-in, and can give yourself the best opportunity for success? Here are four steps to lay the foundation for coaching in your department, so it becomes more of a culture within your department:

Step 1: Set the vision. Decide exactly what you would like the outcomes to be and identify what the team member(s) need to do to achieve them. Clarify expectations, identify the timetable, establish what resources you have available, encourage and motivate them on the first steps of the journey.

Step 2: Step away and let them come to you if they have questions. Empower and encourage them to use their own best judgment. Redirect them to others if they have simple questions. Fight the urge to step in and take over. Support them, but don’t take on their problems

Step 3: If it’s going well, support and acknowledge this fact, and model what is working so that you can repeat if necessary. Monitor how they are doing, evaluate the results and adjust if needed. Keep the motivation going.

Step 4: If it’s not going well you may need to step in and assist. Understand what the issue is and what have they tried. Make a decision quickly after you have checked in with them. Repeat what the vision and deliverables are. Clarify your expectations and resources available. Identify if they need a bit more mentoring rather than coaching.

If you follow these steps, you give yourself a better chance of succeeding with your coaching within the business.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

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

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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”