Adopt coaching style to get better performance
It is often said that as a manager you are only as good as your team. Through experience you realise that you must extract the best performance from your team to achieve personal success. But performance issues that crop up every now and then bog you down. You wonder if you can ever break free from these issues.
According to management experts there is definitely a way out. All you need to do is step into the role of a mentor. Clear, ongoing communication between you and your team is absolutely essential to set things right. This can be best achieved by moulding your interactions with the employees into a coaching style. Let the employees falling short of expectations recognise where the performance gaps lie and understand what they have to do to reach the expected levels of performance. You will soon notice that your success rate is soaring up!
Ambiguity in goals and priorities is often an important reason behind performance issues. Even the most talented employees are likely to fail if they do not know what exactly is expected of them. But most managers overlook this fact. Assuming a coaching style will prevent you from committing this mistake. Setting clear goals and giving timely feedback are two important aspects of coaching. When you start doing these two things employee productivity is sure to improve.
Here is some advice on how to build an effective coaching style:
Outline expectations: While assigning new tasks to the team members don’t just stop at outlining the goals. Provide them also with examples of how the finished tasks should look like. A clear view about what constitutes good performance will help them plan their activities accordingly. If you fail to specify how success will be measured employees tend to grope in the dark. They will aim for excellence only when they know what exactly the term represents. Tell the employees that you are there to offer guidance and feedback to help them get things right. They will start welcoming coaching and feedback once they understand that it is for their own good.
Define standards: While setting standards of performance for new or existing tasks remember to explain the context to the employees. If they understand why the required level of performance matters to the project, to the organisation and to themselves, they will comply with the standards more willingly.
While giving feedback be careful not to get personal or become judgemental. Focus on specific behaviours so that the employees understand what to do better, what to change and what to continue doing.
When you notice a performance problem, carefully observe the employee and analyse what is happening but do not jump to any conclusions. Disclose your observations to the employee and then listen attentively to his version. Once you know the root cause formulate a solution together with the employee to better his performance.
Expect best: Your belief in the abilities of your employees has a great impact on their performance. Research indicates that often people live up to our expectations of them. It so happens that managers with high expectations succeed at getting good performance from the team while managers with low expectations get only poor performance in return. So do not harbour any preconceived notions about who is capable and who is incapable. By placing equal faith in all the employees your chances of getting good performance improve greatly. If not all at least a majority of them will live up to your expectations.
Managing the performance of your team is undoubtedly the biggest challenge you face at work. Unless you work closely with your employees you cannot reinforce good performance in a consistent manner. Adopting a coaching style helps you to keep track of things continuously. When you effectively prevent small issues from snowballing into major performance problems you and your team are bound to exceed performance expectations.
