You are responsible for a team of employees and everything is going well. Everyone is doing their jobs and there are no issues. You notice one employee struggling. That person is having difficulty accomplishing something that is seemingly simple and straightforward. You share your concerns with your direct supervisor and are told, “you need to start coaching them.” Coaching? What is coaching?
Coaching is a word usually associated with sports, but it proves to be very important when it comes to people and behaviour in the workplace. In the past 20 years of my career, I have had the opportunity to attend several leadership courses and coaching workshops. I have also experienced good coaching with great leaders and I regularly coach my employees. Many leaders, managers, team leaders, and employees use the word “coaching” in many different forms. But what is coaching? What does it mean to coach and be coached?
The Transitions Group of North America, a coaching firm, defines coaching as, “someone who partners with others in a commitment of making the other person better based on their individual strengths and goals.” It may appear to be simple, but it isn’t. The website, what-is-coaching.com, provides this perspective on coaching:
Most coaching approaches share:
- The establishment of a relationship that’s built on trust, unfeigned communication and confidentiality.
- The formulation of client-based, agreed upon goals and expectations.
- A deep questioning and learning dynamic in relation to people’s goals.
Many different coaching models will encourage individuals to discuss what is going well, and then discuss an area of opportunity. Getting employees to open up about what is not working is difficult. It is not in our nature to admit to our weaknesses. It is believed that if you start a conversation with the “good” things that an employee is doing, it will be easier to discuss the “not so good things”.
In their book, Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, explain that humans have a hard time admitting they are wrong and it may be associated to how our brains function. Aronson, a social psychologist, says, “our brains work hard to make us think we are doing the right thing, even in the face of sometimes overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”
It is human nature for everyone to want to succeed. Although at times we act with good intentions, but produce unintended results. Coaching means defining what is expected of the employee, then, with the employee, identifying gaps that prevent their success and together working to fill those gaps. But in order for this dialogue to be successful, a solid foundation of trust with the employee and the coach needs to be built.
Build a Foundation
Any successful business relationship is built on trust and respect. As a coach you need to build this with your employees. Show an interest in what they do. Engage in informal, day-to-day conversation. People like to talk and engage with people that are interested in them. This may sound very trivial, but it is true. Try carrying on a conversation with someone who is only interested in themselves.
As this dialogue grows, so will the respect and trust. Be transparent and open with your employees. Share some of your experiences with them. As a leader the biggest gift we can give to our employees is our time and vulnerability. We are human. Showing our human side and revealing that we makes mistakes, makes us real people.
Setting Expectations
There is evidence that job satisfaction is closely linked to an employee’s understanding of performance expectations. The website humanresources .com conducted a poll of its readers and found:
“A lack of clear performance expectations is cited by readers as a key contributing factor to their happiness or unhappiness at work. In fact, in a poll about what makes a bad boss – bad, the majority of respondents said that their manager did not provide clear direction. This factor affected their sense of participation in a venture larger than themselves and their feelings of engagement, motivation, and teamwork.”
As leaders we are responsible to provide clear expectations of our employees. We need to set targets and objectives. The complexity of these targets is dependent on the position.
Monitor and Provide Feedback
The next step is to monitor and provide feedback. Monitoring should be done with intention of ensuring that a task or job is completed. Leaders need to be cautious that monitoring is not implemented where employees think they are being watched. This type of behavior can lead to mistrust in the team, not a culture that teams thrive in.
Providing feedback is the most important concept in coaching. Providing effective and timely feedback separates managers from leaders in an organization. In my experience, managers are those that manage a process or team. Leaders are those that elevate a team to perform above expectations. A true leader is one that will invest the time to let people know how they are doing. Simple words as “great job”, “good work”, and “keep up the great effort”, go a long way. Also, thanking people for their time and dedication can reap great rewards.
Getting Started
If you are new to coaching, the best advice is to keep it simple. Here are some steps that can help:
- Set up regular coaching sessions. Go so far as to even call the meeting “coaching”.
- Coaching sessions should last from 30 minutes to one hour.
- Take the employee out of the office if possible. Maybe visit a nearby coffee shop or head out for a walk. Taking your coaching session out of the office environment puts you and your employee on a level playing field. Coaching sessions in your office may be interpreted as performance discussions that can lead to formal documentation and the HR office.
- Build the foundation. Ask how the employee is doing? What do they like about the job? What do they dislike? Do they have suggestions to improve the work environment?
- Take this time to tell the employee what they are doing well in the job. Reinforce the positive.
- If there is an issue regarding performance, use this time to create a dialogue to discover what is not working. Take the time to listen to what is being said. A true leader will try to understand why.
- Let the employee create a solution to the issue if one exists.
- If performance becomes an issue, then share this with the employee. Explain the next steps of performance related issues.
- Be open and transparent in your communication.
- Be real.
Have you had success in coaching? What are your best tips?