Coaching Employees for Success

First, ask yourself...
Do your employees keep coming back to you when faced with the same challenges, over and over?

When you, as a leader, choose to coach your employee rather than simply manage them, you are putting in time and effort to help that employee become better in the long term. The way you can have the biggest impact on the employee when coaching them is by helping them to figure things out, complete tasks, make decisions and accomplish their goals - all through their own efforts, using their own brain!

The best way to put them in a situation to do so is to first, think of all the ways you are always fixing, advising, telling, directing or rescuing them - and stop! When they come to you with a problem (one that you would like them to ultimately be able to solve on their own) or a question (one that you would like them to eventually know the answer to on their own), put the ball back in their court. Help them to figure things out by asking things like: What do you think the solution to this problem is? What resources do you have to accomplish this task? What do you think the best choice would be in this scenario? How else might you get around those obstacles? What is your plan to get it done? What experiences can you draw from in the past that will help you in this situation?

Simply asking questions like these will help you to engage employees in the decision making process, help them to be creative and think outside the box, and help them to take responsibility for getting the job done. But this process takes time, effort and patience on your end, so what are the benefits for you? Simple! You will have more capable employees who have more confidence in themselves, and best of all - the time you spend now being proactive will result in time saved putting out fires and reacting to problems in the future, making you and the team more productive!

**This tip was taken from "Growing by Coaching & Learning" which is the May session of The Compass Program. Click Here to view the schedule of all 12 sessions for The Compass Program.

Promote Open Communication With Your Employees!

First, ask yourself...
Would you like your employees to feel more encouraged to share their ideas and opinions?

We are all familiar with the concept of "walking the talk" which means to follow through on what we say because in reality, our actions speak louder than words. As leaders, it is vital to walk the talk when it comes to promoting the idea of "open" communication, because when our actions do not mirror our words, dramatic negative fallout can occur. When employees feel that they cannot approach their manager with a question, concern, or simply to challenge something they don't agree with, the following are likely to happen: more long-term conflicts will take place, innovation will be stifled, reactive attitudes will form instead of proactive ones, and there will be a lack of trust within relationships.

If an environment of honest, open communication is something we desire to have, we can't simply just talk about it; employees must see it taking place, and it starts with us, as leaders, actively promoting it. Actions such as proactively soliciting feedback (even if we know it might not be all wonderful compliments), encouraging others to play devil's advocate (especially to our opinions), and commending others for proposing ideas that might be different from ours will show that we actually mean what we say about open, honest dialogue.

Taking these proactive steps makes it clear to the others on the team that their opinions matter and that we value what they bring to the table - likely resulting in an increased level of employee engagement and sense of ownership.

**This tip was taken from "Promoting Open & Healthy Dialogue" which is the October session of The Compass Program. Click Here to view the schedule of all 12 sessions for The Compass Program.

Successfully Empower Your Employees!

First, ask yourself...
Would you like to be able to empower your employees to make more decisions on their own?

Empowering employees helps free up the manager's time for more important tasks, and helps to develop the employees' skills and increase their engagement at the same time. Empowerment is obviously a good thing, but how come we are not always able to empower our employees as much as we would like? Well, many factors contribute, but one that is often overlooked is the amount of information we share with them, and how this act (information sharing) directly impacts our ability to empower, and their success when empowered!

When we actively and openly share information with our employees, 3 major outcomes are likely to occur:

1. Commitment and overall employee engagement will increase since they will feel like a bigger and more integral part of the team
2. The amount of innovation and proactiveness on their part will skyrocket
3. They will have the knowledge and ability to make decisions on their own (no longer will they have to run to us every time they have a question, or encounter a problem or challenge).
   

So what info do we share? Well, each organization is different, and each employee is different. A few ideas to get you started: company financial data, the needs and wants of the customers, strengths and weaknesses of the organization, info about competition, and overall organization and team goals.

This tip was taken from "Empowering Others for Success" which is the July session of The Compass Program. Click Here to view the schedule of all 12 sessions for The Compass Program.

Take More Responsibility!

First, ask yourself...
Is your reaction to a situation ever to immediately avoid responsibility, without even realizing it?
Given the choice, most people would choose to accept responsibility for their lives. After all, who doesn't like being in control of their own destiny? The problem is that we often fall into a reactive, or victim-like state of mind without even realizing it, simply due to the language that we use on a regular basis! Think about it...how many times in a given day do you use phrases like "I can't..." or "I need to..." or "I have to..."?

When we use reactive phrases like these, it automatically puts us into a subconscious "victim" state of mind where we are giving up control of what happens, and basically saying to ourselves "I have no power, it's not up to me anymore." When this is the case, it's no wonder we disown responsibility, and then tend to blame others or make excuses.

The next time you are about to say one of these phrases, try changing the words you use and see what happens to your attitude. In the future:

Replace I can't... with "I won't..."
Replace I have to... with "I choose to..."
Replace I need to... with "I want to..."

Build Trust With Employees

First, ask yourself...
Does the lack of trust you share with a co-worker ever decrease your ability to be effective?

Trust is one of the main foundations of any successful organization. Why? Because of the need for interdependence: other people, teams, and departments have an influence on how well we perform or the success we have in doing our job 100% right.

When considering trust, there are 3 components that contribute to the amount given and received:

Integrity - The individual acts in accordance with values/principles, and they can be counted on to keep their word (ex: Your employees arrive on-time to work when you are out of town at a conference and there is nobody watching)

Competence - The individual is fully capable of performing their roles and responsibilities well (ex: Your sales people are able to successfully compare your product/service to your competition's, which will help close the sale)

Compassion - The individual cares about the needs of others and is committed to contributing to the good of the team (ex: People volunteer to stay in during lunch to help another department finish a big project for an important customer which is due that same day)

Each of these components carries more important in different situations, but one fact remains constant: the lack of any one of these components will weaken the relationship, which will have an adverse effect on areas such as productivity, communication, service to the customer, efficiency, and teamwork- just to name a few!

Helping Employees With Change Management

First, ask yourself...
Do your employees ever seem to "lose steam" at some point of the process during a big change?

Going through change is difficult for many reasons. Change requires people to take a chance, step out of their comfort zone, and possibly do things they have never been asked to do before. We as leaders must do all that we can to ensure we get the best possible result from change.

To achieve the best possible outcomes, we will need the commitment, motivation, and effort from each and every one of our employees throughout the entire change process. To help make sure this happens, we should try to "create victories" for them as much as possible. It is important to show them how well they have been doing. They desire to know that their efforts are working, and that they are making progress or accomplishing something with all of their hard work. Creating victories can come in many different forms- anything from sharing a weekly progress report, to e-mailing an update, to giving periodic awards to people for accomplishing specific goals.

Showing our employees that they are doing a great job, the changes they are trying to make are working, and that they are on the right path, will help to keep them properly motivated and their minds focused on the end goal.

This post was made by Jeff Rosset, President of Compass Coaching & Development. Visit us at www.Compass-CD.com to learn more about our leadership development services.

Effective Time Management

First, ask yourself...
Do you have important tasks to get done that you never seem to get around to doing?

We have all done it before. We look at our to-do list on Monday, identify something important that we have been meaning to get done for a while (ex: "spend 3 hours to research and find an effective customer feedback survey"). We then realize the 8 million other things we HAVE to get done today, and automatically transfer the survey research task to Tuesday's to-do list. And what happens? You guessed it! Tuesday comes (this time 9 million things to do) and we transfer it to Wednesday, and so on, and so on.

For many reasons, it can be difficult to make time for those important activities. The problem is, it is those activities that will ultimately help us free up MORE time in the future (using the above example, if we could spend the time now to find a way to get useful feedback from customers, we could reduce the time spent each week handling customer complaints). What we need to do, as leaders, is start thinking more proactively about how we are spending our time each day/week/month, and how what we do today will affect us down the road.

So how do we get ourselves out of this time-wasting, reactive cycle? It's called "backfilling your schedule." We should block off chunks of time (even months in advance) for those important tasks that are likely to get pushed aside for something more urgent - and then hold ourselves accountable to keep to that schedule! By doing this, we will ensure those important tasks are completed, which will free up MORE time in the future!

This post was made by Jeff Rosset, President of Compass Coaching & Development. Visit us at www.Compass-CD.com to learn more about our leadership development services.

Communication & Leadership Development

First, ask yourself...
Do I ever feel that I don't fully understand the true meaning behind what others tell me?

True communication only happens when message sent equals message received. If the listener does not fully understand the meaning, feeling and thoughts behind the speaker's words, then true communication did not really take place. Words might have been exchanged but the real message was not understood by the listener.

A common problem we ALL have is that in an attempt to interpret what someone tells us, we filter it through our OWN paradigm. We reference OUR past experiences, OUR feelings, and OUR perceptions, but the person sending the message usually doesn't share any of these things with us. It is this typical reaction on the part of the listener that most often causes miscommunication.

Make it a point to ask clarifying questions and draw out as much information from the other person as you can. Do everything you can to get to know how THEY feel, and what THEY really mean. Doing this will help you see things from their paradigm, thus allowing message sent to finally equal message received.

This post was made by Jeff Rosset, President of Compass Coaching & Development which is a firm that helps companies in Chicago, Naperville, Schaumburg, Oak Brook, Deerfield and the surrounding areas increase employee engagement by providing leadership, organizational and employee training and development services. We focus on skill sets such as change management, communication, attitude, coaching & mentoring, empowerment, time management, customer service, trust, and accountability. Learn more at http://www.Compass-CD.com