The development and retention of talented employees are critical to the success of any organization. And the best way to develop top people, and therefore increase the odds that you will retain them, is to ensure they are getting the opportunity to achieve to their greatest potential.
The most effective way to help people reach their highest level lies in the art of coaching. Therefore, it’s important for leaders at all levels to become great coaches in order to attract, retain and develop their best talent.
Not only does coaching allow you to develop your high-potential employees, it also has other benefits. Through the process of coaching, you have the opportunity to use your top people as a sounding board for your own ideas, which ultimately can improve the effectiveness of your decision-making. Coaching also allows you to address derailing behaviours and can be used to manage poor performance in a way that is constructive and can boost morale.
Coaching is about supporting people while they work to achieve company objectives and their own professional goals. And top employees are generally great candidates for coaching because they are usually self-motivated and eager to advance.
Before a coaching relationship can begin, your coaching subjects – those high-potential top performers – must have the right attitude. Specifically, they need to be willing to accept help from you and others around them, and they must have a desire to learn, grow and take action. Talk to them and get a sense of their suitability for coaching before you go any further.
Your own potential as a coach also depends on several critical success factors. You must have the respect of those you are coaching and be seen as trustworthy and credible. It is also necessary to have a true desire to help people achieve their full capabilities. You cannot mask a disingenuous attitude, so don’t even bother trying. Naturally, you also need the necessary skills, behaviours and experience to be a good coach.
Let’s take a look at those skills and behaviours. As a coach, there are three vital activities in which you must engage. The first is asking questions. Rather than always having ready answers, a good coach knows to encourage someone’s own critical thinking skills by asking questions like “What are the issues?”, “What are your options?” and “What will you do?”
The second key activity is providing feedback. If you want people to build on their strengths, rather than focus on their weaknesses, use a 5:1 ratio of catching people doing things right. For every bit of negative, albeit constructive, feedback, find five positive things to say.
Third, be sure to delegate. Clarify who has decision-making power and then push decisions down as much as possible.
Another thing to keep in mind is that coaching can become quite personal. Life balance is critical to individual fulfilment and one’s personal life can be an enabler or a barrier to career success.
The possible topics on which to build the coaching relationship will of course depend on the individual and specific performance goals. However, there are a number of common topics that may provide a good starting point. They include relationship building and rebuilding, including interactions with board members, peers, bosses, direct reports and even customers. Listening skills and allowing others to influence is another topic, as are healthy conflict management and mastery of emotions.
Helping someone build on their strengths and sense of self-confidence is a common theme in coaching. So is reining in the alpha male: helping someone learn how to manage one’s behaviour and minimize “ego talk.”
Developing practical skills such as time management, decision-making and delegation may also be a jumping-off point. Life, career and succession planning could also be on the coaching agenda.
There are several effective approaches to coaching. To create a more formalized arrangement, you could conduct regularly scheduled coaching sessions such as weekly or monthly meetings of anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour.
Another, more organic approach is to provide ongoing daily feedback through praise and the identification and discussion of improvement opportunities.
Some coaches practice a 90-day approach, which is a focused, three-month program that may include gathering formalized 360-degree feedback or a concept known as laser coaching in which a specific aspect of someone’s performance is addressed.
Whatever your approach, remember that coaching is much of what traditional, top-down management is not. The coach’s role is to be a facilitator, to help others help themselves as they continuously reach for more. •
