Last night I was on a conference call with a team of experts where we are going to be doing a very innovative presentation as a panel on how to create a coaching culture. I was on a panel with a group of people that are far smarter than I could ever hope to be. It was one of the nicest and friendliest conversations I've ever had with a group of people. It kept hitting me throughout the conversation how much we talk about this thing called culture and workplace engagement as this entity that we have to go create.
Words like trust and execution and generations were used throughout the conversation. It hit me really hard no matter the organizational shift or dynamic being sought every step of the way a conversation is needed. It could be an executive manager or leader coaching his or her manager. It could be a mid-level manager talking to a supervisor. It could be a manager coaching and employee.
The challenge is can managers have very thoughtful conversations without solely relying on directive messages or feedback. For example, what if a talented employee is exhibiting an evasive behavior to work within a team concept and demonstrates an abrupt and negative attitude in staff meetings. Can your manager honestly have a conversation to build an employees awareness of themselves so they have an opportunity to improve or do they simply resort to directive feedback and telling them to cut it out which long-term never works.
What if two employees who are highly talented and well-respected do not work well together? Can your managers have a conversation that ultimately prompts the two employees to willingly agree not only that they have to work together more effectively but are willing to do so?
What if you have an employee who has an incredible amount of talent in a particular area but lacks confidence when presenting their expertise? Can your managers have a good coaching conversation that prompts the employee to be excited about practicing so they can gain greater confidence?
These examples simply typify what happens inside of our workplaces. Two fundamental examples that happen all the time are the following. First, if a manager has a low performing employee they seek out training or simply send them to the training department. Second, if a manager has a poor behaving employee they simply send that employee to the principal's office or better known as the human resource department. Here is the funny thing the manager is the one doing the end of your review and often they lose trust because they bring up things in the end of the year review conversation that the employee needs to improve that they actually never participated in helping them improve.
Why? Because managers are not skilled and properly trained and having coaching dialogues that build employee awareness and willingness to pursue better performance!
What if you could teach managers how to have very targeted conversations that they were comfortable doing that prompted employees willingness to improve? Now you can with coaching prescriptions. We have created a new product calledCoaching Prescriptions - see one of our samples: click here
