Coaching and mentoring can have lasting impacts that often extend well beyond their immediate purpose, and as leaders we should never forget the importance that coaching brings. Some lessons last a lifetime. Here are some indispensable coaching lessons that we find useful.
- Effective Coaching Requires Trust
How do we create a foundation of trust? The old saying of “They don’t care how much we know until they know how much we care” is where we start. Making them feel safe and demonstrating that we care about their professional development and them as a person will lay a foundation of trust upon which we can build.
- Set KPI Goals but Focus on Behaviors
Performance is generally measured with a variety of KPIs – Key Performance Indicators – but KPIs are measuring outcomes impacted by a variety of behaviors. To change outcomes, you must change behaviors. By establishing SMART Goals, we can create an actionable plan that lays out the specific behaviors and skill improvements that will accomplish the KPI goals.
- Facilitate Self-Discovery
We want to make our own decisions about what we do. By using an effective self-discovery coaching method like Pendleton’s Model of Feedback, often referred to as What Went Well/Even Better If, the person being coached is the one making decisions about what behaviors need changing. Think of this process as guiding without judgment by asking lots of open-ended questions, like, “What led you to that decision?” or “How did that person respond when you said…?” or “How might you do that differently if you could do it again?” This method creates a sense of ownership and internal motivation to change.
- Equip for Success
Do they need a new skill? Is there a software solution that will help them succeed? Do they need advice on how to approach something? Don’t give them a job if you’re not going to equip them with the tools they need to accomplish it.
- Use Confident Language
The language we use has powerful consequences on our mindset which, in turn, has powerful consequences on our outcomes. Framing the desired outcomes as inevitable – “When we start using that confident phrasing, we’ll hear less objections and achieve more sales” – does not assume the possibility of failure. Ask any athlete who has been in a “slump” or “in the zone” about how confidence impacts performance.
- Set Expectations and Get Commitments
Motivation and confidence are important to performance, but a clear understanding of what is expected is critical. Are we supposed to do this often? Most of the time? All the time? Are there exceptions? Are there potential obstacles still standing in the way? When people have clear expectations about what to do and when to do it, the chances of success are far greater.
- Follow Up and Celebrate Success
The single hardest part of behavioral change is keeping focus on the change over a long enough period to physically rewire your brain. Doing something different today is one thing. Doing it over and over and over and not falling back into autopilot mode is hard. Roughly 90% of New Year’s resolutions fail because long-term change is hard. You can help dramatically increase the success rate of behavioral changes by regularly checking in on progress and celebrating small victories.
[box type=”shadow” align=”” class=”” width=””]About ZRG
Founded in 1994, ZRG International is an ICT solutions company with a major focus on customer interaction technologies and solutions. We offer experience and innovation to help businesses manage customer relationship and achieve higher customer satisfaction and increased profitability.
ZRG has a proven track record of introducing innovations and exciting new possibilities in the customer communication areas. Our line of solutions cover all aspects of customer communication including customer contact center, CRM application suite, quality assurance suite, call center management tools, self-service automation tools, campaign management and teleconferencing. Our solutions are deployed at mission critical contact centers that are being used to provide information, assistance and services to millions of users each day through live agent and self-service based applications.
ZRG has an experienced and knowledgeable team capable of quickly designing and adding tailor-made features in our solutions for site-specific requirements. By using open standards systems, specifications and protocols, we ensure maximum flexibility and future growth of our solutions. We use innovative techniques to deliver latest features and integration capabilities in a most cost-effective manner. Our deployment team has successfully completed all our projects well before the deadlines.
Every day, on every project, we deliver value through our accumulated technical knowledge and project management skills. Our expertise delivers immediate benefits to our clients with cost and time savings. Our solution delivers increased operational efficiency and staff productivity to our valued clients. This is what we do. We deliver beyond expectations.
For more details:- www.zrg.com[/box]