It’s a warm, sunny day and the first thing on my “to-do” list before the official “work day” begins is to water my garden. These little bursts of green and color bring such joy, and I’ve found over the years the only thing plants really need from me is consistent watering. Let’s face it, plants know how to grow, they typically do that well as long as they have water and sunshine. They don’t need me to set a schedule for them, plan their priorities, etc. As long as I water them and “dead-head” them (meaning keep the spent blossoms from draining their energy – another coaching analogy!), they will excel at what they do best, grow and produce wonderful color!
As I watered away, I kept thinking about a blog post by Kris Dunn on performance reviews and coaching. His words reminded me that people are much like plants. They typically know how to grow and what they need to do to achieve and reach their objectives; many times they simply need a listening ear and a safe sounding board (water) to help them have the strength and courage to do what they do best.
And so, here is Kris’ list of coaching skills for managers. Keep your annual performance reviews, and then do the following:
1. “Start an initial and recurring training program to build coaching skills in all your managers. You have to do this or nothing else really matters. (Using external coaches who can coach your internal coaches is a great way to do this. This approach brings skilled coaching practitioners who will provide a wide range of coaching resources, feedback and support to your internal coaches.)
2. To get your managers to use the coaching skills, work with your senior leaders to implement a system where managers are expected to do "one-on-one check-ins" with all direct reports once a month (note: some progressive companies do this weekly, but you have to walk before you run).
3. Be the coach for the coaches (see recurring training in point #1). They're going to need it.
Coaching is the replacement for the annual performance review. In fact, the lack of coaching skills is the REASON we have performance reviews. The one-on-ones should truly be "check-in" in nature, there's no rating scales, etc. The manager sets up a block of time, and the employee is expected to build a list of what THEY want to talk about. The manager is there to help knock down barriers for them. Once the employee is done with their list, the manager uses the coaching skills to talk about what's going well, and some areas of opportunity they want the employee to focus on.
No rating, just talking. Coaching. I know, novel idea.”
And now, back to watering my garden.
*** Read Kris' full post here - Fistful of Talent
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