Many employers sit their workers down once a year for a review. At that time, the employee finds out what they've been doing right or if there are areas in need of improvement. But what happens the other 364 days of the year?
Coaching is a different approach to developing employees' potential. With coaching, you provide your staff the opportunity to grow and achieve optimal performance through consistent feedback, counseling and mentoring. Rather than relying solely on a review schedule, you can support employees along the path to meeting their goals. Done in the right way, coaching is perceived as a roadmap for success and a benefit. Done incorrectly and employees may feel berated, unappreciated, even punished.
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These seven steps, when followed, can help create a positive environment for providing feedback.
Step 1: Build a Relationship of Mutual Trust
The foundation of any coaching relationship is rooted in the manager's day-to-day relationship with the employee. Without some degree of trust, conducting an effective coaching meeting is impossible.
Step 2: Open the Meeting
In opening a coaching meeting, it's important for the manager to clarify, in a nonevaluative, nonaccusatory way, the specific reason the meeting was arranged. The key to this step is to restate -- in a friendly, nonjudgmental manner -- the meeting purpose that was first set when the appointment was scheduled.
Step 3: Get Agreement
Probably the most critical step in the coaching meeting process is getting the employee to agree verbally that a performance issue exists. Overlooking or avoiding the performance issue because you assume the employee understands its significance is a typical mistake of managers. To persuade an employee a performance issue exists, a manager must be able to define the nature of the issue and get the employee to recognize the consequences of not changing his or her behavior. To do this, you must specify the behavior and clarify the consequences.
The skill of specifying the behavior consists of three parts.
- Cite specific examples of the performance issue.
- Clarify your performance expectations in the situation.
- Asks the employee for agreement on the issue.
The skill of clarifying consequences consists of two parts. You should:
- Probe to get the employee to articulate his or her understanding of the consequences associated with the performance issue.
- Ask the employee for agreement on the issue.
Step 4: Explore Alternatives
Next, explore ways the issue can be improved or corrected by encouraging the employee to identify alternative solutions. Avoid jumping in with your own alternatives, unless the employee is unable to think of any. Push for specific alternatives and not generalizations. Your goal in this step is not to choose an alternative, which is the next step, but to maximize the number of choices for the employee to consider and to discuss their advantages and disadvantages.
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This requires the skill of reacting and expanding. You should acknowledge the employee's suggestion, discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the suggestion, ask for and offer additional suggestions, and ask the employee to explain how to resolve the issue under discussion.
Step 5: Get a Commitment to Act
The next step is to help the employee choose an alternative. Don't make the choice for the employee. To accomplish this step, the manager must be sure to get a verbal commitment from the employee regarding what action will be taken and when it will be taken. Be sure to support the employee's choice and offer praise.
Step 6: Handle Excuses
Employee excuses may occur at any point during the coaching meeting. To handle excuses, rephrase the point by taking a comment or statement that was perceived by the employee to be blaming or accusatory and recast it as an encouragement for the employee to examine his or her behavior. Respond empathically to show support for the employee's situation and communicate an understanding of both the content and feeling of the employee's comment.
Step 7: Provide Feedback
Effective coaches understand the value and importance of giving continual performance feedback to their people, both positive and corrective.
There are a few critical things to remember when giving feedback to others. Feedback should:
- Be timely. It should occur as soon as practical after the interaction, completion of the deliverable, or observation is made.
- Be specific. Statements like "You did a great job" or "You didn't take care of the clients' concerns very well" are too vague and don't give enough insight into the behavior you would like to see repeated or changed.
- Focus on the "what," not the "why." Avoid making the feedback seem as if it is a judgment. Begin with "I have observed..." or "I have seen..." and then refer to the behavior. Focus on behavior and not the person. Describe what you heard and saw and how those behaviors impact the team, client, etc.
- Use a sincere tone of voice. Avoid a tone that exhibits anger, frustration, disappointment or sarcasm.
Positive feedback strengthens performance. People will naturally go the extra mile when they feel recognized and appreciated. When corrective feedback is handled poorly, it will be a significant source of friction and conflict. When it is handled well, people will experience the positive effects and performance is strengthened.
Related: Seven Steps to Superstar Employees
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Comments:
Title is misleading. The article talks more about how to handle problems, than how to coach and give positive feedback (thus promoting superstar employees). The last, too small paragraph at the end is misplaced-and should be in another, separate article on how individuals can add to powerful team.
Katherine made excellent points. One easy way to provide feedback is using a "sandwich approach." Start with two positive attributes the person provided, two very specific areas for improvement, and wrap-up with two positive attributes. This makes it easier for the person to hear the "negative."
These are good points to coaching. I particularly liked the idea of not offering solutions for them first. I wrote how to do this with additional tips, How to Give Feedback to Employees at http://www.retaildoc.com/blog/retail-sales-training-how-to-give-feedback-to-employees/ Another important thing you mentioned is being timely. So many times we wait until "its convenient" and we've forgotten what/why there was a problem. Until the next time...
Katherine: Great post. These points are definitely useful. We've also seen that iterative, continuing training can be helpful to keep staff on point. Even if someone is an old-timer with your company, having training where they can refresh on certain skills helps keep them growing. Rafferty Pendery Studio98
Awareness of biases by the coach I might suggest is equally important especially recency bias, Matthew effect and others. Many managers blight the feedback process if they are not sensitive to them. Good post on the whole.
I came upon this article accidentally and find it quite upsetting because it does so much damage to the notion of coaching as a management activity. The primary issue is that it explicitly positions coaching as an approach to performance "issues" (i.e problems) and thus, immediately sets up a 'difficult conversation', the starting point for coaching is ideally the setting of the individuals objectives and follows on from there. This sets a positive frame for the coaching - and ensures that the employing organisation benefits. The second issue is that it presents coaching as an event that happens in a very formal way - the best coaching is that which happens informally as part of day-to-day interaction. I write this as a career long executive coach, Founder of The School of Coaching, author of 'Effective Coaching' and co-creator of The Inner Game eCoach with Tim Gallwey. Myles Downey
Well Katherine. The above mentioned steps are really very beneficial to any business man to make his employees get succeed in their work. Good informative post.
Great article for getting the more success with employees by building the team work. One more point i want to mention is that get the suggestion from the employees , listen what they want which in favour of the organisation , and after thinking on their suggestion , choose the right one. Or if suggestion little wrong then try for little changes, and explain to employee the right thing and then implement for the success of the organisation. So this way employee can get the self respect and organisation can build the trust which is the major thing and the base of any relationship.
I suggest as well to ask the employee how they believe they are doing and whether they are on track to accomplishing their goals and getting the job done. But, I definitely agree that performance reviews once a year is a waste of time and will not accomplish much. Constant and consistent feedback conversations, will keep them on the same page as you, and is key to more productive and engaged employees and a more productive and engaged you.
I suggest as well to ask the employee how they believe they are doing and whether they are on accomplishing their goals and getting the job done. But, I definitely agree that performance reviews once a year is a waste of time and will not accomplish much. Constant and consistent feedback conversations is the key to more productive employees and a more productive you.
Creating mutual trust is first and foremost the most important aspect of this article. Without it, you are in a constant struggle. Being personable and showing respect for someone else's time will help create that trust. Give the other person more. Show them you care with gestures that show you are willing to go the extra mile for them. They will do the same for you.