'Remember, the purpose of effective coaching is to catch your employees doing something right!'
Two of the most-common reasons for small-business failure are: recruiting the wrong people; and a lack of management skills.
In an article that appeared in Canadian Insurance titled 'Recruiting Winners,' we discussed how to hire the right employees. The next step is to use right management skills to ensure those employees are productive and motivated.
Since your relationships with your employees are the means by which you achieve success at your own job, your effectiveness as a manager is based on your ability to influence others. In today's business world, coaching is the primary vehicle for positively influencing employees' performance.
Coaching involves a series of skills: observing and analyzing performance; questioning; listening; and the ability to provide feedback to enhance skills and build self-esteem. Managers also need to develop positive personal qualities and attitudes. They need to learn, for example, how to diagnose needs, solve problems, and carry out their mandate with fairness, patience, and directness. These skills are best learned in a classroom environment where managers can discuss them and practice their application in simulated business situations.
WHY COACH?
- Change is a way of life. Coaching helps all members of the organization adapt to change, and avoid some of the stress that it can cause.
- Business is more complex than it used to be, and systems and events are more closely interconnected. Employees need to know the 'big picture'-how they fit into the overall organization-and to be shown how to adapt accordingly.
- When managers pay attention to how people feel about their job and work environment, the job gets done better.
- It is critical that all employees know exactly what is expected of them, why it is important, and how significant their individual contributions are in helping the organization achieve its goals. Effective coaching will allow the employee and the manager to make incremental improvements on a consistent basis.
- Change demands that managers be more flexible and creative than ever before. The managers who will be the most successful are those who keep themselves open to new ideas, new ways of working, and new approaches to solving problems. The best source of new ideas is your employees who are working directly with your customers.
WHEN TO COACH
- Coaching is a daily process that takes place with all employees, and involving talking, supporting, problem-solving, and reviewing performance.
- Coaching should also take place at quarterly review times, prior to training events, or when a need to discuss performance arises, such as when it improves or declines.
- Coaching should be the management practice most frequently used by leaders. The worst thing a manager can do is give an employee no feedback on his or her performance. Over time, this leads to disinterest in the job.
HOW TO COACH
- Begin by asking for self-assessment. This will reduce fears of being 'criticized.' People are usually aware of their strengths and weaknesses. This will allow you, in most circumstances, to concur with their assessments.
- Limit feedback to a few important points. If you overload an employee with feedback, he or she won't be able to absorb everything.
- Provide more praise than corrective feedback. Focusing on what is going well has more impact than negative feedback.
- Give praise for expected performance, as well as for exceptional performance. This is particularly important for the above-average employee, who often receives the least amount of feedback because we take his or her good performances for granted. Praise builds self-confidence, and is a powerful motivator.
- Give feedback (both positive and negative) soon after you have observed the behavior as possible, so the employee 'hears' it.
- Always give corrective feedback in private. Positive feedback should occasionally be given in public.
- Be specific, and provide supporting documentation. Develop priorities and action plans against which both the employee and management can measure progress. Non-specific goals will defeat your best coaching efforts.