Good managers use coaching skills as part of their routine.
Coaching involves crating a comfortable environment where action plans can be developed together.
To become the most effective coach possible, work on mastering the following skills:
- Listening actively
- Asking the right questions
- Advocating your opinions
- Giving feedback as a coach
- Receiving feedback as a coach
- Building agreement
Tip: Those who coach regularly, coach better. Find opportunities to develop your coaching skills
Listen actively
As a coach you need to be tuned into the other person's feelings and motivations. You do this through active listening.
Active listening encourages communication and puts other people at ease. Active listening also clarifies what's been said to avoid misunderstanding.
Maintain eye contact.
Smile to put the other person at ease.
Avoid anything that will distract your attention.
Be sensitive to body language such as posture and arm position. Is the person tense or relaxed?
Listen first and evaluate later.
Do not interrupt the other person except to ask questions to clarify and to encourage him to continue
Repeat in your own words what you think the other person has said.
Wait until after he has finished talking to plan your responses.
Ask questions
Asking questions is a valuable tool for understanding the other person and determining his or her perspective. Use both open-ended and close-ended questions. Each yields a different response.
Ask open-ended questions. Open-ended questions invite participation and idea sharing. Use them to:
Explore alternatives: "What would happen if ?"
Establish priorities and allow elaboration: "What do you think the major issues are with this project?"
Use close-ended questions carefully. Close-ended questions lead to "yes" or "no" answers. Use them to:
Focus the response: "Is the project on schedule?"
Confirm what the other person has said: "So, the critical issue is cost?"
Advocate for your opinions
Effective coaches offer their ideas and advice in such a way that the person receiving it can hear them, respond to them, and consider their value.
It is important to advocate for your opinions in a clear and balanced way.
Describe the individual's situation as you see it.
State your opinion about the situation.
Make the thoughts behind your opinion explicit, and share your experiences.
Encourage the other person to provide her perspective.
Over-reliance on inquiry can result in the participants' withholding important information and positions. Conversely, if you emphasize advocacy too heavily, you create a controlling atmosphere that can undermine the coaching partnership.
Give feedback as a coach
Feedback differs from advocacy in that you are responding to a specific behavior or action rather than presenting and arguing your position on the overall problem or need for change.
Giving and receiving feedback is a critical part of managing in general, but it is an especially important part of coaching.
This give-and-take goes on throughout the coaching process as you identify issues to work on, develop action plans together, and assess the follow-through.
When giving feedback -- whether positive or negative -- try to do the following:
Focus on behavior -- not character, attitudes, or personality: Describe the other person's behavior and its effect on projects and/or coworkers.
Avoid judgmental language, which only makes people defensive. For example, instead of saying, "You're rude and domineering," say, "I observed that you interrupted Fred several times during each of our last three meetings."
Be specific: Avoid generalizations. Instead of saying, "You did a really good job," you could say, "The transparencies you used for your presentation were effective in getting the message across."
Be sincere: Give feedback with the clear intent of helping the person improve.
Be realistic: Focus on factors that the other person can control.
Give feedback early and often in the coaching process: Frequent feedback that is delivered soon after the fact is more effective than infrequent feedback.
Receive feedback as a coach
You also need to be open to feedback on how effective you are as a coach. Coaches who are able to request and process feedback about themselves learn more about the effectiveness of their management styles and create greater trust among members of their groups.
To improve you ability to receive feedback:
Ask for specific information. For example, "What did I say that made you think I wasn't interested in your proposal?" or "How were my suggestions helpful to you?"
When you ask for clarification, do so in a way that doesn't put the other person on the defensive. Instead of saying, "What do you mean I seemed hostile to your idea?" say, "Could you give me an example?"
Be willing to receive both negative and positive feedback.
Don't be defensive. Only justify your actions if asked. Tell the other person when you've gotten all the feedback you can effectively process.
Thank the person for being willing to share feedback with you, both positive and negative. This will improve trust and model productive behavior to the person you are coaching.
Building agreement
Agreements are the foundation of coaching. You build agreements in the beginning as you commit to working together, and throughout your relationship as you pursue the coaching objectives.
The agreement process includes all the above activities from initially recognizing the need for coaching to observing to listening actively to one another and collaboratively coming to agreement about the issues and resolutions.
There has to be agreement between the coach and the coachee for the coaching process to work.
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