Maher Fouad Alhashwa, CTIE
Introduction:
Today in any work environment, it’s essential to keep in mind that coaching is one of the important aspects to have a successful team and to achieve your duties as a leader. Also, we have to keep in mind that adapting each coaching style will be important when it comes to deal with different type of employees based to their skills, work experience, positions and career needs. Listening, encouragement and empowering are the key factors for this mission.
I always keep reminding myself with the famous quote by Benjamin Franklin “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”
We will be focusing on two parts in our article, coaching employees and coaching skills.
In below part, we will be covering coaching employees, the definition of the four different types of employees, their area of strength, weakness and how to improve it.
1-Rookie.
Rookie is the first type of employees that we will talk about. They are early stage in our coaching chart and requires a special unique style in order to encourage them to move forward to the second stage. They want to become empowered, but they need time to be skilled.
What it come to Rookies mind in work field the following thoughts:
-What I have to do.
-How to do it.
-What tools are available.
-How to reach out to.
Recognizing them in a praise and treating them as a key player, this will take and encourage them a long way. As a mentoring person, we expect that you need to be available always and to keep in mind that you will be asked for help and assistance most of the time.
It’s acceptable and normal that this period will take time and effort to move forward to a skilled person.
2-Contributor.
Contributor is the second type of our employees. Contributor were the person is moving forward into the next level where he becomes a person with a kind of confidence and starts to know what to do in a normal working atmosphere. Still, we have to keep in mind and be aware that it’s a sensitive period where we have to keep our support, encouragement and assistance whenever it needed. Failure to that, Contributor might feel lost again and move to Rookies level.
The following would be key points for the contributors:
-Give them some empowerment.
-Give them sense of independence.
-Encourage, praise and be available for assistance.
-Don’t leave and throw them to drawn.
-Keep a track for their skills development.
-Challenge them to move forward.
As a result, if the mentioned points are achieved, the contributor would be ready to step to the next higher level which we call it a key player.
3- Key Player.
Key player is our third type of employees, they know what they are doing and we can consider them an important type of people to our company and to the success of our business.
Key player still needs assistance and delegation however, he/she doesn’t need too much telling as he knows what to do, how to do and mostly understands the work aspects within his territory. As a manager you can back off a little because things are getting done now.
There are some points to keep in mind and aware of when it comes to coaching a key player:
-Don’t abandon them completely.
-Don’t have too much type of contact.
-Give them space and arrange for availability to handle new tasks.
-Praise them from time to time.
4-Captain.
Captain is our fourth type of employees; he is the elite part in the team and also called the Peer Leader. They know what they are doing, don’t need much of encouragement and they have their input.
As a manager, you have to remember that captain still needs support whenever they are asking for it, also below points are important to keep captain’s confident:
-Don’t pile other staff work on them.
-Keep them empowered.
-Be a good listener to their thoughts and input.
-Show your support and don’t ignore them.
Coaching Skills.
This is the second part of our article. We will be talking about the skills that are necessary to have as a manager when it comes to coaching his team.
The first coaching skill will be Conversation. It’s a great area to start with, it helps your employee to improve and moves forward to the next level of expertise.
Linda Lambert, Ed.D. is Professor Emeritus from California State University, and a full-time author of novels and texts on leadership stated that “One good conversation can shift the direction of change forever.” Which is true and a very valid point.
In leader’s world, the most difficult part of your coaching environment will be seeing your team fail and creating mistakes but at the same time, it’s a unique experiment when you will see this fail switched to a success afterward.
Bottom line: your team will not learn to do their own job if we will be doing it for them.
The second skill is Self-evaluation. This part is the transforming level to feedback process which we will be talking about soon. It let them think and analyze their work, their performance and help them to start thinking what are the missing parts and skills they need to learn.
Before begin writing down the self-evaluation, we can summarize them in below points:
-
- Know how the self-evaluation is going to be used.
- Write out a list of your accomplishments.
- Gather analytics if you can.
- Write out a list of your struggles.
- Narrow your accomplishments list down.
- Don’t forget to align your review with your manager’s or team’s goals.
Feedback is the third skill. Feedback is essential in any work environment; without it you can’t move forward and always will feel there is a missing loop.
The best definition of feedback is: promotes personal and professional growth. Feedback is about listening actively, taking the time to analyze, and then thinking of the best possible solution to perform better. It provides positive criticism and allows to see what everyone can change to improve their focus and results.
In a normal scenario, the manager will start asking his employee how they thought they did with their self-evaluation. After that, will give his feedback in private and focus on a couple of points to give feedback on.
Do you know that feedback have four different types! they are summarized as below:
• Negative feedback – corrective comments about past behavior.
• Positive feedback – affirming comments about past behavior.
• Negative feedforward – corrective comments about future performance.
• Positive feedforward – affirming comments about future behavior.
The principal founder of Microsoft Corporation Bill Gates had a great quote on feedback “We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.”
Another famous feedback quoted by the co-founder and CEO of Tesla Inc Elon Musk “I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.”
Constructive Feedback In The Workplace
Providing constructive feedback to an employee is one of the toughest parts of being a small or mid-sized business owner. It’s not easy to tell an employee their performance needs improvement. That’s why it’s important to learn how to effectively give constructive feedback in the workplace. These pointers can help.
Choose the Right Setting
Pick an appropriate time, place and individual to offer feedback. Don’t get caught up in the moment and lash out at an employee when you notice a mistake, especially in front of other staff members or customers. Instead, schedule a private meeting where you won’t be disturbed. Focus on delivering your message to the employee, and allow enough time for the employee to respond to the concerns raised.
Keep Your Emotions in Check
Try to conceal frustration when providing constructive feedback by preparing speaking points in advance and focusing on the issues and work product. During the meeting, be thoughtful about how you deliver the message to help avoid saying something you might regret.
Focus on Actions and Plans
Your feedback should be focused on the employee’s performance and work product, not on the employee themselves. For example, rather than questioning work ethic, talk specifically about missing deadlines or targets. In addition, be prepared to lay out expectations and offer clear steps on how an employee can improve their performance. Take care to consider whether you’re unfairly targeting certain employees with your feedback. Think about whether you’d give feedback to another employee for the same reason; if not, it could give rise to legal claims of discrimination or unfair treatment.
Offer a Chance for Further Discussion
Allow the employee the chance to provide their own feedback, thoughts and ideas about the situation and how to improve, which can be a great learning experience for both parties. Let the employee know you’d be happy to discuss the issue further at a follow-up meeting. You can also take the initiative to propose a follow-up meeting to check in on the employee and see if they have other thoughts or concerns on the feedback or action plan.
Train Your Employees
To make your employees more receptive to constructive feedback in the workplace, run an annual training class on effectively delivering feedback that incorporates managing emotions and active listening. It would only take a few hours to cover the basics of these important skills. As part of this training, emphasize how part of employee development is to receive and respond to feedback and constructive feedback, which can ultimately help improve their careers.
Create a Learning Experience
Consider indirect ways to provide feedback and improve performance. For example, if you notice a number of employees have the same productivity issue, nominate a small task force to identify the problem impacting productivity and design solutions. Some workers might learn more from this approach rather than through direct feedback from you.
Giving Constructive feedback may not be fun, but the right techniques can help make the process more pleasant and productive for everyone.
The Importance Of The Employee Feedback Loop.
In the employee recognition business, we are always stressing the importance of clear and honest communication between employees and managers. We do this for a couple of reasons. For one, the employee-manager relationship is consistently ranked as a top driver of employee satisfaction.
Another reason is that encouraging consistent, authentic communication establishes positive feedback loops, which are essential to the success of any reciprocal relationship. Positive feedback loops are a fundamental concept in psychology, and the science behind them is simple: Give people feedback about their actions in a timely manner without fear of reprisal, and it gives them a healthy opportunity to work toward better behaviors.
Emotional Intelligence
When an employee holds back information out of fear of losing their job, their reputation or a beneficial relationship, that tension doesn’t go away on its own. If a manager neglects to engage employees in positive, non-judgmental ways, the tension inevitably escapes elsewhere, usually in the form of gossip, sabotage, emotional withdrawal or, worse, anger.
For better or worse, much of the responsibility for maintaining feedback loops fall on the shoulders of frontline managers, who spend more time interacting with frontline employees than anyone else in an organization. Training managers in emotional intelligence is a big part of what they do, and lesson one is building this critical rapport.
Taking The Temperature
Strong feedback loops strengthen relationships on the whole, making them more resilient to change or adversity. Think of it like an HVAC system — the thermostat reads the temperature of the room and continually adjusts itself in increments. No matter what the temperature is outside of the room, the inside remains consistent and comfortable. The thermostat doesn’t question why the temperature changes, it simply pays attention and reacts appropriately.
Summary
In our article we talked about coaching and how it’s important in the work field.
We discussed also the four different types of employees and how each one needs a unique style of coaching and communication.
Another exciting side we talked about is the coaching skills, constructive feedback in workplace and the importance of the employee feedback loop.
At the end, I would like to share these empowering words quoted by Ronald Regan:
“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.”
