by Diana Southall | Nov 3, 2015 | coaching
Like exercising and eating right, most business owners express to me that they know they “should” be spending more time coaching and training their team members.
When I ask why, the answer I get is “I am too busy” – but what is the real reason?
Yes, even small business owners and managers sometimes don’t “do the job” (a short list from my article 10 reasons why someone doesn’t do the job) —
Which one applies to your situation– why aren’t you coaching your staff?
- You don’t know what to do / or how to do
- You aren’t motivated to do it (you are uncomfortable)
- You think it is pointless
- You believe something else is more important (after all, you do spend your time doing something else)
Let me first address 3 and 4— Coaching is not pointless and nothing else is more important to your company’s success.
If you want to retain top performers and get your team working together to delight your customers and grow sales— only positive coaching for accountability (based on cascading goals) will do this.
Here are four possible solutions for the “reluctant coach” — to increase the amount of coaching and positive impact on your team:
- Design and use a management rhythm— know what to say, when to say it — to clarify expectations and coach for accountability
- Make conversations easy– build trusted relationships (builds on the management rhythm)
- Practice and learn how to be comfortable—do it, learn from it, do it again (and keep it positive and appreciative)
- **Add a layer– Develop a team leader or general manager who will be the People coach, and interact with the team daily.
(You can get updates from this person, and lead weekly team update and rocks meetings to still be active and involved with the team. Just not every day and on every issue.)
(**This is also how you grow the team to stop relying on your daily presence…)
If you are not interested in creating a better process, or learning how to do it authentically and naturally, that is just fine.
Just as long as you start developing a People coach on your team who will.
by Diana Southall | Oct 6, 2015 | coaching, culture, job fit, performance
Many organizations realize that “prior job experience” is only one element that determines success in a job role.
Since 82% of managers are in the wrong job— mid-size and large employers are looking toward other indicators to use for selection, career paths, training and development.
(more…)
by Diana Southall | Sep 15, 2015 | culture, performance
A client was mentioning his frustration with a fairly new employee, when these words were uttered “He seems disorganized, after one year.“
This person had 5 years of experience in a similar role and was hired with high expectations to come onboard, quickly learn the job, and start taking on more client work and responsibility to free up the owner’s time.
But you may have been in this situation before.
The person takes a bit more time than expected to “learn” the job (or at least your systems and procedures). And he does the activities of the job adequately, but doesn’t achieve the results you expected. Or take on a larger role or more responsibility that you would like.
So you spend more time monitoring and coordinating work, and feel like you still can’t delegate anything off your to-do list.
He is a stable employee in the role but the growth and impact is not what you wanted at one year.
So you are questioning the root cause of the performance gap:
- Are the expectations clear?
- Does this person want the role I thought I hired him for?
- Will training help?
- Is this even the right person?
This is a challenge for even the most seasoned People Coach.
To uncover the true cause of the gap between what an employee is doing and what you expect in the role, you need to “evaluate for job fit.”
To assist in this detective work, I have created an article and template to guide you.
Download the “Job Fit Performance Maximizer” here.
by Diana Southall | Aug 21, 2015 | action plans, job fit
How do you possibly find out the needs and motivators for each person on your team, and then maximize their strengths and give them what they desire?
After all, your team is made of individuals, all with their own strengths, weaknesses (or as I like to call them, “areas of non-fit”), personality quirks and idiosyncrasies.
As a client’s manager once phrased it, “we have 100 people and we have 100 different personalities! I realize I have to treat each one differently.” Truer words were never spoken, Bill C.
Fortunately, even though every person might need a different approach and respond to individualize coaching, you can start the “strength building process” by categorizing in two key areas: performance and commitment.
In fact, I designed a template that allows you to profile your team on these two key elements, and then created a matching “Action Plan” focus for each one.
Every time I use this “blueprint” with clients, a lightbulb goes off about at least one employee “Oh, that is why I am struggling with this person” or “Oh no, I should have that conversation I have been putting off soon—they might be looking for another job.”
Mapping out your team also helps you prioritize your coach efforts for fast results or avoiding a disaster — by focusing on the most urgent situations first. (A word of caution, don’t ignore the middle for too long, but that is for another blog article.)
We use this proven tool with clients to focus and prioritize weekly coaching conversations for maximum benefit (as part of the development action plan process).
How to get started mapping your team
- Download your copy of the People + Performance Profiler here
- Read the instructions to create your People Profile
After mapping your team, start the discussion and development action plan process to find out what each person wants from your job, and jointly create the path to get there.
If you develop the trust and the relationship with positive and appreciative discussions, they will tell you what motivates and engages them so you can give it to them.
Image provided by stock images, freedigitalimages.net
by Diana Southall | Aug 10, 2015 | Delegation
We have all been there, whether you are a “control freak” or “perfectionist” who struggles with the handoff, or a great delegator who regularly gives away routine work.
You start doing something and you just know that someone else could do it.. perhaps should do it.. perhaps does it better. Yet, you rationalize that you will do it faster, she is busy, you don’t want to bother / distract him, you waited too long and now it’s urgent, or my favorite- it will only take a few minutes.
Is this an issue, perhaps not.
But, you are a candidate for more delegation if:
- You are exhausted/ overworked/ burnt out doing work you don’t enjoy
- You want to spend more time in your “circle of genius” and do things you actually enjoy
- Your business revenue has flat-lined, or is losing customers or opportunities because you haven’t implemented those big plans you have
- Your high potential people are leaving after a few year
Why should you delegate— in case you need reminding:
- Your time is available to focus on high value long-term activities to grow, scale or optimize your business
- By delegating, you develop the skills of your team members, which is actually the number one reward and the reason they stay with your company
- Your brief initial time “investment” pays dividends over time
If you think about investing your time to show someone a task that takes you “only 1 hour a month”
=1 hour training + 15 minutes verifying/ clarifying / training x 4 weeks = 2 hours invested in another person’s development versus 12 hours of your time year (6x your initial investment)!
You know you “should”—if you would like the “how” click here to read my article “Too Busy? 5 Steps to Delegate More”
