Coaching your team members to practice greater authenticity with their peers is necessary to build a healthy workplace culture and trust among teammates, especially during these times where they may not see each other face-to-face on a daily basis.  

Suggested Strategy:

• Use a Permission-Based Question along with The Sword to open the individual up themselves to coaching and feedback.  This will help with the individual not becoming defensive because they allowed for you to share observations and perceptions with them.  Use the five words: we, share, opportunity, perspective, and observation in your conversation to take the edge off the conversation.

Suggested Questions:

• Permission + The Sword:  With your permission, and so that I don’t make assumptions because that would be unfair to you, I would like to share some observations that I feel could provide us an opportunity for growth in your relationships with your peers.  (When permission is granted) It is my perspective that you may choose not to be authentic in your relationships with your peers and I feel that there may be an opportunity for growth.

• Reflective Question:  I don’t want you to answer right away, take some time to think about it while I go get us some coffee/use the restroom/grab some water (whichever you would like to use), but while I’m out I would like you to think about why you may hesitate to be 100% authentic with the team.

Suggested Activities:

• GOAL-Based Coaching:  What does the employee hope to become Great at in their career?  What Opportunities might be afforded to the individual by becoming great?  How might authenticity with the team tie into the Actions that the individual must take to bring those opportunities within reach?  What will the employee Love about reaching their goals?  How will being authentic with their peers lead them toward reaching these goals?

Suggested Learning Projects:

• Tangible Successes:  Assign your coaching target to come back to your next coaching session with three examples of situations where they felt that they practiced authenticity with a peer.  What strategy did they put into practice in that situation?  What was the outcome as a result of their efforts to be authentic?

Supplemental Coaching Strategies:

• 30-Second Coaching:  Reinforce positive strides by the individual toward becoming authentic in their relationships with peers – take 30 seconds of your day to verbally acknowledge specific actions taken by the employee to become more authentic with their peers.

• Journal-Based Coaching:  Ask the employee to keep a journal in the coming weeks with entries noting times during the week where they felt that they struggled with being authentic with a teammate.  What could they have done differently in that situation?  They should also track positive authentic interactions in their journal as well.

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