Coaching employees is hard because every employee is different. They’re motivated by different things, have contrasting skills, and respond to feedback differently. Ignore this uniqueness and you end up with rigid standards that poorly match your team. Allow too much subjectivity and you’re unable to compare the apples to the rambutans.
This is the number one reason managers completely abandon employee development: it’s too hard. Rather than using an imperfect system, we do nothing. And this creates our biggest failure – not that we use imperfect coaching methods, but that we don’t even try.
Spoiler: every method you use for growing your employees is going to be flawed. The only thing worse than a messy development conversation is no development conversation. Every leader wants to turn around under-performing employees and motivate high-performers, but we’re often unwilling to have the kinds of conversations that get the ball moving in the right direction.
Employee development takes courage. The courage to wade into murky, subjective conversations and to do your best to connect with your employees. You’ll risk being rejected, there’s a chance that your team won’t resonate with what you’re telling them, but those are the kinds of gambles you have to take when investing in your people. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
So where should you start if you’re not feeling confident? Feedback should always be specific and actionable – so consider the key traits or attributes that are most relevant to the work your team does everyday. People use things such as customer service, or living the mission, or whatever categories make sense for their environment. What you use matters less than actually using it.
And if you find that you can’t come up with something, try starting with some basics. With my team, I focus on teamwork (working with others), independence (working alone), and results (getting the right work done). These dimensions balance what’s “external”, what’s “internal”, and what’s “important”, and give you a broad lens for each employee.
Teamwork
The modern workplace is a team sport. It’s important to company morale and culture that everyone contributes to a positive and constructive environment. This means being intentional and specific around the way your team works together. Your employees should put value on working with each other and creating a feeling of camaraderie.
Specific things to think about with each employee:
- Does this employee work well with others?
- Do they communicate effectively and clearly using the available communication tools (slack, email, etc.)?
- Are you confident that this person could work with anyone on the team?
- Does this person seem to be part of a clique that excludes others?
- Does this person want to be a part of this team?
For extra credit:
- This is about more than “do they get along well with others”, but do they navigate around others well. Do they seem self-aware enough to avoid unnecessary squabbles or messy personal drama? An employee being well-liked isn’t everything, but it does show you that the person may have a good sense of how to avoid trouble.
Independence
The larger the team, the greater importance that your employees be self-sufficient. Employees should have the confidence and capability to get their work done without needing their hand held. To use an old analogy: you need employees that want to fish, not to be fed fish. With set boundaries and clear direction they should be highly effective within their area of experience.
Specific things to think about with each employee:
- Do they have the skills to produce good, independent work?
- Are they self-confident?
- Do they chronically ask you to double-check their work or repeat instructions?
- Can they adapt their work to different deadlines or other constraints unique to your department? Basically, are they flexible?
For extra credit:
- Consider that each person on your team has a particular “superpower”. They might be very organized, or be charismatic, or enjoy participating in team-building activities. How can you take that person’s special something and empower them to crank it up to 11? Have your extroverted public speakers help orient new employees. Have your organizer keep track of miscellaneous functions and organize formal events. Get as much out of their strongest attributes as possible.
Results
This one can be tricky, so I’ll defer to Patrick Lencioni, who in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team describes “inattention to results” as “the tendency of members to care about something other than the collective goals of the group”. He calls it the “ultimate dysfunction of a team”. Your employees need to be interested in the team’s goals and be held accountable for their own individual results that affect those larger goals.
Specific things to think about with each employee:
- Can your employee speak to the organization’s goals?
- Do they seem interested or motivated by the departmental goals or objectives?
- Can the person articulate what “good work” looks like for their job?
- Is the person willing to be held responsible for their individual work? Are they open to feedback about poor performance or opportunities for improvement? Do they make excuses and blame others for poor results?
For extra credit:
- Employees with leadership talent will be comfortable having broader responsibilities. Find someone who is willing to champion an ambiguous goal (like “improving morale” or “higher customer satisfaction”), and you’ll find someone with leadership potential.
Skeptical of the criteria I’ve outlined above? Find something that works for you. But whatever you use, get the conversation started. Take five minutes to jot down notes or feedback relevant to the specific employee you’re working with. Note specific behaviors or situations that highlighted something with that employee, positive or negative. Use my notes on meaningful feedback if you get stuck.
Whether your first feedback session goes smoothly or not, your employees will be motivated by the fact that you cared enough to take their performance seriously and that you sincerely want them to improve and grow.
Good luck out there.
-Patrick
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