by Adele Gregory

Created on: August 20, 2011

As a manager, evaluating your team’s performance is part of the job. Coaching goes a step deeper. It moves from simply assessing how well people are doing to the skills they need to do it better. Staff appraisal deals with the “what” of performance; coaching is more concerned with the “how”. Even employees who are very aware of their own stumbling blocks don’t necessarily know how to remove them. This is where coaching comes in.

The starting point for coaching your team effectively is observation – not looking for what you expect or whether things are going to plan but standing back with an open mind to view what actually happens. What you really want to take note of are the mechanisms of their performance: patterns, triggers, reactions and where those responses lead.

A worker who is having trouble meeting daily targets, for example, doesn’t always need tips on working faster. They could also be slowed down by the way they make decisions or manage interruptions. Only paying attention to a typical day and how they describe it will let you know which avenue can give the best results.

Observing over time is even more powerful. One of the simplest and most effective ways to help team members improve is by taking note of times when they have performed especially well. Remind people of these successes and discuss together what they did to achieve their results. This introduces the concept of “more”. More doesn’t expect someone to change old habits overnight or create new ones out of thin air. It starts with what people have already done in the past and looks for ways they can do it more often or turn up the volume. Using past successes removes the need to convince anyone that improvement is possible because the proof is already there.

Managers adept at coaching are often avid readers or learners when it comes to theories and studies of workplace issues. They don’t expect to re-invent all the wheels and are happy to look things up and find out what’s known about different aspects of performance. Passing on information about possible strategies and solutions is an integral part of coaching, so the larger your knowledge base the better your chances are of finding something appropriate for your employees, whether it’s from personal experience or books and articles.

The words you use to get your message across can also make or break its effectiveness. Like setting goals, coaching tips

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>