Put Me In Coach
Welcome to the exciting conclusion of Put Me In Coach. During part one, we covered two of the four major areas that lead to coaching success. This entry details the remaining items that will assist leaders in becoming great coaches.
#3 Growing People
The cornerstone of coaching is the ability to develop talent. It is not easy, but the best coaches I know embrace the following:
1. Coaching is constant. Developing people is not an occasional or one-time event. Rather, coaching is an activity that powerful leaders do every day. If you want your team to consistently perform at a high level, make certain you observe behaviors and proactively coach daily.
2. Ownership. It is the coach’s responsibility to drive development activities. While team members certainly have a huge stake, the learning process should be driven and monitored by the coach.
3. Have a plan. The creation and sharing of a formal coaching plan is a crucial step in the development process. It is a compliment to the casual coaching that you offer each day.
4. Partnership. Once a formal coaching plan has been discussed with a team member it is important to seek their buy-in. You may ask them to demonstrate their commitment by signing the coaching plan and/or craft a summary of each coaching session.
5. Tailor. While you may possess a particular coaching style, a good coach is often a chameleon. It may be necessary for you adjust your coaching style so that it fits seamlessly with a team member’s personality, skill level, experience, and potential. More than likely the members of your team have varied levels of the above traits. As such, their needs will call for you to adjust your approach in order to be the most effective coach for them.
6. Time Allocation. It is a brutal reality, but a coach only has so much time to offer team members. As such, it is critical that coaches ‘force rank’ team members in order to clearly understand who the high performers are and who possesses high potential. By allocating the lion’s share of your time to these categories you will be maximizing your team’s potential results. Note: spending an unfair share of your time coaching underperformers is unfair to the people who are producing and will ultimately stunt the results that your team will realize. Picture a basketball game: who does the coach talk with most during the game, the people on the bench or the people scoring the points?
#4 Communication & Feedback
The hallmark of an effective coach is their ability to deliver feedback that sticks. In addition, it takes discipline, organization, and solid observation skills to be able to offer feedback on a regular basis. There are six steps to consider in this part of the process:
1. Ask and tell. The first step in delivering feedback is to ask team members what they expect to receive. Also, if you have a preferred style or method, share your thoughts with the people you coach. Let them know what to expect from you, and tell them what kind of behavior and results you expect.
2. Catch people doing something right! It is our strengths that make us successful. As such, be observant of other’s strengths, best practices, and achievements. Once positive behaviors or outcomes have been observed, promptly give the team member positive reinforcement.
3. Mind the math. My experience has shown that people tend to respond to feedback that is slanted to the positive. A ratio to keep in mind is three pieces of positive feedback to every one piece of constructive feedback. Now, if someone has totally screwed up, it certainly is appropriate to delve more heavily into the constructive. Under normal circumstances, however, a 3:1 ratio (positive to constructive) works nicely.
4. Tone & Body Language. It is critical that the tone of voice and body language that you use while coaching is consistent with the message that you are delivering. Good eye contact, a confident tone, and open body language, coupled with the appropriate words and timing can add up to a powerful coaching lesson that deeply resonates with a team member.
5. Be specific. Saying ‘good job’ or ‘please do better next time’ to someone has minimal impact. Yes, it lets them know that you are aware of their performance, but it does not give them something specific to repeat or correct. As such, seek to highlight specific behaviors that team members exhibit, as well as the specific results they achieve. If you deliver constructive feedback make certain that you also describe the correct behavior and enhanced results you expect.
6. Raise the bar. High performing professionals enjoy being challenged. Do not hesitate to challenge team members to perform at a higher level. Something to consider is asking the people you coach to seek to be incrementally better today than they were yesterday. Building a mindset of continuous, incremental improvement can lead to a culture that is focused on quality and performance.
#3 Growing People
The cornerstone of coaching is the ability to develop talent. It is not easy, but the best coaches I know embrace the following:
1. Coaching is constant. Developing people is not an occasional or one-time event. Rather, coaching is an activity that powerful leaders do every day. If you want your team to consistently perform at a high level, make certain you observe behaviors and proactively coach daily.
2. Ownership. It is the coach’s responsibility to drive development activities. While team members certainly have a huge stake, the learning process should be driven and monitored by the coach.
3. Have a plan. The creation and sharing of a formal coaching plan is a crucial step in the development process. It is a compliment to the casual coaching that you offer each day.
4. Partnership. Once a formal coaching plan has been discussed with a team member it is important to seek their buy-in. You may ask them to demonstrate their commitment by signing the coaching plan and/or craft a summary of each coaching session.
5. Tailor. While you may possess a particular coaching style, a good coach is often a chameleon. It may be necessary for you adjust your coaching style so that it fits seamlessly with a team member’s personality, skill level, experience, and potential. More than likely the members of your team have varied levels of the above traits. As such, their needs will call for you to adjust your approach in order to be the most effective coach for them.
6. Time Allocation. It is a brutal reality, but a coach only has so much time to offer team members. As such, it is critical that coaches ‘force rank’ team members in order to clearly understand who the high performers are and who possesses high potential. By allocating the lion’s share of your time to these categories you will be maximizing your team’s potential results. Note: spending an unfair share of your time coaching underperformers is unfair to the people who are producing and will ultimately stunt the results that your team will realize. Picture a basketball game: who does the coach talk with most during the game, the people on the bench or the people scoring the points?
#4 Communication & Feedback
The hallmark of an effective coach is their ability to deliver feedback that sticks. In addition, it takes discipline, organization, and solid observation skills to be able to offer feedback on a regular basis. There are six steps to consider in this part of the process:
1. Ask and tell. The first step in delivering feedback is to ask team members what they expect to receive. Also, if you have a preferred style or method, share your thoughts with the people you coach. Let them know what to expect from you, and tell them what kind of behavior and results you expect.
2. Catch people doing something right! It is our strengths that make us successful. As such, be observant of other’s strengths, best practices, and achievements. Once positive behaviors or outcomes have been observed, promptly give the team member positive reinforcement.
3. Mind the math. My experience has shown that people tend to respond to feedback that is slanted to the positive. A ratio to keep in mind is three pieces of positive feedback to every one piece of constructive feedback. Now, if someone has totally screwed up, it certainly is appropriate to delve more heavily into the constructive. Under normal circumstances, however, a 3:1 ratio (positive to constructive) works nicely.
4. Tone & Body Language. It is critical that the tone of voice and body language that you use while coaching is consistent with the message that you are delivering. Good eye contact, a confident tone, and open body language, coupled with the appropriate words and timing can add up to a powerful coaching lesson that deeply resonates with a team member.
5. Be specific. Saying ‘good job’ or ‘please do better next time’ to someone has minimal impact. Yes, it lets them know that you are aware of their performance, but it does not give them something specific to repeat or correct. As such, seek to highlight specific behaviors that team members exhibit, as well as the specific results they achieve. If you deliver constructive feedback make certain that you also describe the correct behavior and enhanced results you expect.
6. Raise the bar. High performing professionals enjoy being challenged. Do not hesitate to challenge team members to perform at a higher level. Something to consider is asking the people you coach to seek to be incrementally better today than they were yesterday. Building a mindset of continuous, incremental improvement can lead to a culture that is focused on quality and performance.
posted by DVD Consulting at
4:53 AM
1 Comments:
Doug,
I just wanted to share some feedback regarding time allocation. The statement below resonated with me, as my experience has been that more is accomplished by identifying the (what I call) make it happen individuals and mentoring them while allowing the soldiers to march in formation. I never gave much thought as to how this management approach would be viewed from a training or human resource perspective and really appreciated seeing this mentioned in your newsletter. (love the basketball analogy)
Have a great weekend,
Troy
Post a Comment
<< Home