The year is coming to a close and like most managers, executives and business owners you’re looking back over the year evaluating the company’s performance.  I would bet you recently completed your annual employee performance evaluations.  No surprise, you see room for growth in the staff.  You wonder why your talented management team is not doing a better job developing their staff.

 

News flash!  One of the reasons behind the less than stellar staff development can be found in annual performance reviews.  Very little behavior change results from a once a year feedback approach.  You say, “but my managers give feedback all year long!  Their employees know exactly where they stand and what is expected of them.”  I’ll bet they do.  I’d put money down that your managers are providing “directional feedback” versus the more effective “developmental feedback” practiced by managers who coach their team.  Your managers are telling their teams exactly what to do, how to do it and what happens if they don’t do it.  Try coaching for performance instead of managing for performance.

 

 There is a huge difference between managing and coaching for behavior change:

 

                 Managing is directing.       

                 Managing is telling.     

 

A coaching conversation is structured to get the employee to see their challenges versus being told what those challenges are.  Coaching conversations help the employee find their own solution to removing road blocks to behavior change versus being told what not to do. In a true coaching conversation, the manager doesn’t prescribe, he/she asks questions to lead the employee to enlightenment.  Real behavior change occurs when the employee, with support from the coach, owns their weakness and finds their own solution to changing their behavior.

 

Want real and lasting change in your staff next year?  Would you like to see your staff more proactive, more effective, making better decisions and treating your customers with respect?  If you answered YES and who wouldn’t, then train your executives, mangers and supervisors to do more than manage – teach them to coach!