Every line manager, every deputy manager and of course every manager spends some of their time coaching unless they think their team are perfect as they are. Ultimately you want to improve the performance level of your team which is accomplished one person at a time.
So how can coaching benefit your team members, and how can you start implementing coaching?
- What is it that you need an individual to improve? (Focusing on their strengths and finding workarounds from others in the team for their weaknesses) What is the goal?
- What is the problem? – can you identify it effectively
- How does that individual learn best? Might they need you to break it down for them, re-training, or to watch you do it, you might have to re-teach in different ways, maybe 7 times, be patient.
- Let them practice, supported as appropriate.
- Stay positive, stay supportive because we all make mistakes and skills take time to perfect.
- Mistakes are a teaching moment, make sure they understand what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future, you want them eager to do better, not cowering in fear.
