Coaching is not a simple task, actually this is a task that a lot of managers dislike and avoid. But, truth be told, you can’t grow a strong business unless you actually dedicate some time to coaching your team.
I. Before you coach
Coaching, like any other meeting a manager needs to hold, requires some preparation. Never go into a coaching session unprepared, that’s a sign of disrespect to your employee.
So, do your homework beforehand:
- Review the employee’s performance against your KPIs.
- Compare their results to the rest of your team.
- Write down top 3 areas of concern that you want to address in the meeting.
- Draft the goals and the action plan that the employee may be able to follow.
Now that you’ve done your homework, are you ready for the meeting? Not so fast! Wouldn’t it be fair to give your employee some time to prepare as well? They might actually want to share with you their side of the story, or maybe they have a few topics they want to discuss with you as well. Therefore, make it a habit to inform your employee of the meeting beforehand. Give them a few minutes or even a couple of hours to prepare.
One last thing, keep in mind that the employee’s focus will drastically decrease after 25 minutes, so plan to keep the meeting fairly short.
II. The coaching session
Ok, so now you’re ready for the coaching session. Start with a bit of chit-chat, 5 minutes will do the job. Most employees will be anxious just for being in a meeting with you, so help them relax a bit.
As soon as you are done with the chit-chat, briefly mention the 3 topics that you chose for the discussion. This will help the employee better understand what are the key-points of the discussion.
Then go over each topic. A bad habit that some managers have is to jump back and forth between topics. That’s not a good practice – do you want to coach or confuse the employee?!
If you want to coach, exhaust each topic before moving to the next one.
If you pass the 25 min mark and you didn’t get a chance to go over everything, assess the employees attention capabilities and move forward only if you are certain that the employee can handle it. Even so, stop within the hour – don’t push it!
Q: Who should do the talking?
Some clients ask us who should talk more, the employee or the manager. We advise that you follow the 80 – 20 rule. In other words, the employee should do 80% of the talking.
Isn’t that too much, some would ask? Well, NO! Remember that it’s the employees job to perform at work, so it’s their responsibility to come up with an improvement plan.
You are the guide – you present the issue and let the employee come up with their own approach – just make sure that their plan matches with yours. If at any point they get stuck or go off the rails, help them jump back in and hint at a possible solution. But never, ever force your ideas upon them! Again, you are the guide, so help them reach the goal using their own method.
Some say that this way of coaching takes too long and requires a lot of effort from the manager. And that is true, but psychology shows us that this is the best way to handle the situation.
So you, the manager, should get used to the idea that real progress takes patience and time.
III. Concluding the coaching session
When you are done discussing the topics, have the employee do a quick recap of what are the goals you both agreed to, and the actions they just committed to exercise.
Key point: Both the goals and the actions need to be agreed upon by both parties! Again, don’t force your own ideas onto the employee. It’s your job to guide them out of their comfort zone, but only they know what they are truly capable of.
Alright, so your employee now knows what they’re aiming for and how they can get there. What’s left is to set a follow-up meeting, preferably the following week, to check on their progress and make any adjustments to the plan, if the case.
End the coaching session by asking the employee the following questions:
- Is there anything else you want to talk about today?
- Do you have any feed-back for me?
Let’s briefly go over these 2 questions.
Question #1 helps you identify any other obstacles that may stand in the employee’s way to hitting their professional goals. If there’s anything that’s keeping them from hitting the target, you need to know about it and if it’s outside the employee’s control, it’s your job to fix it.
Question #2 gives the employee the chance to tell you if they need you to modify your approach to better suit their professional needs. Some employees might need more help than others. Ultimately, if your employee succeeds, you succeed, so it’s in your best interest to provide them a customized managerial approach.