Coaching an Employee

This is on a perspective of an employee.

One of the hardest part of being a manager I think is to talk to an employee who is not performing according to either the managers expectation or to the company's guidelines and of course expectation. It is also difficult for a manager to coach because there'll be excuses and blames and many more because who wants coaching. Coaching is such a negative term for most employee. There are a lot of so many things a manager or a coaching personnel to bear in mind to make the coaching effective and so it won't end up both parties hating each other.

Imagine, your team is your soldier and before placing them in the battle field you have to ensure they are fully equipped to win each day of a battle. But there are definitely days where your soldier would go easy and some balls will fall into the crack. In these case, I have to share an experience where a proper coaching should've been done to get the soldier pass through the red mark. The soldiers mark always reflect what kind of general they have so better be good in coaching and strategizing with them.

You are a bad leader, oh wait, you are the worst leader if you try to make your follower like you. If you try to make them robot and just do what you want you are still the worst leader. So be careful, coach them, not to make them in your own image because for one you are not God, you are just their leader.

Here's what I thought should be observed when coaching.

• Coaching is correcting the behavior. So drill down towards the behavior. Identify what behavior that needs to be fixed. Action is acted upon by behavior. So if a ball has fallen into the crack then behavior may have change.
• You can only elicit information when you let your employee talk. Let them do the talking. Let them explain what happened. From there, then you can draw information that you can use to identify the behavior from the action they have taken. Ask open-ended question.
• TRUST is a key factor to have a better coaching. Remember, it is always easier to coach a person when they TRUST you as their manager. If your subordinates do not think and act like you then somehow elicit clear boundaries. I guess the key here is to build a very good working relationship to each of your employee. It is easier to elicit information to someone who trust you and it is easier for a person to provide information to someone they TRUST.
• The best way to start a coaching session is to somehow open it by enumerating the key strength of the employee and then moving on to providing assessment. The assessment is somehow a medium for you anyone to be aware as to what and how are they doing so far. Start with the positive one then go for what they have been lacking. 

At some point when I hear the word coaching I almost always worry that they'll fire me out or my boss would tell me that I am the worst employee. It is the most hated word for an employee I suppose. You can't blame them though because I myself had experienced a boss where she attacked my personal life and called me names and labelled me with the ugliest word the world could ever define.

So here are some other tips that is helpful. I had been doing these as well in my previous jobs and somehow this has worked really well on my end in providing a better experience while helping an employee achieve their goals at worked.

• After that small little talk, make sure to list down the behavioral pattern the employee has employed when placed on a difficult situation. Most of the time when we say "coaching" it should be more talk on the employees and the manager will be less talk.
• With the list you have, say for example the employee is consistently not making any sales and based on the behavior you noticed that his scripting is not working for the employee and he keeps blurting out and it is affecting his next customer. You have pointed this out to the employee but after pointing out to the employee you should be asking them like, "What would you do differently next time?" Guide them and make his or answer as action plan on every line item.
• Make an action plan together with the employee and get an agreement about it.

The manager also plays a very important role for the success of his or her employee. I believe that part of leadership is for the manager to contribute to the employees success or unfortunately failure. A manager, for me, who wants his or her employee to think and act like him or her will most likely have an employee crashing to their failure, or to the point of them resigning and looking for other opportunities outside the company.

A manager should be having self assessment for each of his/her employee. at least one or twice a month. If I am a manager, I would be preparing a list of my employee and will be adding there my self assessment questions like, what did I contribute to this employee? Am I approaching issues objectively without bias or emotions?

After self assessment, the manager may want to evaluate or assess the issue or to the subject. Practically, you as a manger is evaluating the three aspects of performance issue from the environment, from the employees attitude towards the issue and the problem itself. There may be questions like did the issue personally affected the employee (in what way?). Or is the working environment affecting the employees performance? Or is this issue a problem from another problem?

With all these in place it will be easier for the manager to discuss matters to the employee.