By Timothy Kitching, Executive Coaching Director at the KONA Group. Our employees tell us that they want constructive and pragmatic coaching from their people leaders. The benefits of a coaching culture in the workplace are clearly documented and supported by evidence based research.  Increased productivity, greater employee engagement and significantly improved revenue are all tangible results seen from organisations that adopt a coaching culture. The KONA Group offers a range of Sales management training and coaching opportunities. Here are two hot tips that will help you achieve even better results when coaching your people:

1. Ask your people what they would like to work on, a coaching session is about the person you are coaching, not about you!

As a leader, engage with your people by being genuinely interested in them.  Invest some time in understanding the person you will be coaching.  Your people have a ‘fake’ meter that can sense a lack of real interest a mile away.  In coaching you can’t ‘fake it until you make it’, you actually have to be sincere in your interest and efforts. If you need a process or work with in a very process focused workforce don’t be afraid to provide a checklist of topics that are potential discussion topics prior to the session.   Ask them to choose or suggest a subject that they would be interested in talking about. Why bother with what your people think?

• Both of you will feel a degree of control over the coaching sessions, this helps people buy into the experience.
• The person being coached sees that you respect their views and opinions.
• The sessions are perceived as being sincere and genuine, and that really matters.

2. Ask the person you are coaching for Feedback

Asking for feedback as soon as a coaching session is finished initiates open conversation where both of you can further develop your coaching relationship.  Coaching is about combined efforts producing positive results. Some feedback questions that you can ask include:

• Do you feel that our conversation was worth your time?
• Do you feel that what we discussed was important or relevant to you?
• Do you feel like I was able to listen and understand what you had to say?
• Has this conversation helped you find solutions to problems?
• What could we do differently to make it even better next time?

If you are interested in further information on Executive coaching you will be interested in one of our previous blogs on ‘Mindfulness in a coach’.  Coaching is a difficult and challenging skill to master.  Each coach has a different style that impacts how effective their efforts are. If you need help do not be afraid to engage an executive coach to help you develop as a coach and turbo charge both your performance and that of your team.