Life moves at such a pace that it’s easy to get stuck in a rut in all sorts of ways; including how we coach and support our people.  By Right Trax Training

When was the last time you considered the quality of your coaching?  If your people were asked to rate the quality of the coaching you deliver out of ten, how would you score?  Chances are, if you average any lower than a seven, you could do with brushing up on your technique.

Coaching, in the context of a professional workplace is about supporting, encouraging and unlocking.  What it is not is doing, telling or counselling (and that includes doing all the talking!).  Successful coaching should provide development as a result of guided conversation and questioning that helps the person being coached (i.e. the coachee), to get to their own solutions.

So take some time to refresh and see how many of our top 10 tips for better coaching you can check off!

10 Tips for Better Coaching

1. Be human    Always keep it real.  Don’t apply a process or shoehorn the coachee into your preferred coaching structure.  Use structure to keep the conversation guided and on-track whilst having a natural conversation.
2. You’re a passenger    Just like a driving instructor, they’re in the driving seat and you are next to them, perhaps using the dual controls at certain points to guide and steer, but ultimately it is them that is in control.  If any coaching is to be successful, the coachee must take ownership; only they can make the change and you can only be there to support that change.
3. Questions are the answer    Coaching should feel like a bit of an exploration for the coach, and like any true explorer, you don’t always know where you will end up when you set off.  As the coach, you don’t have to know the answers to all of your questions – gone are the days when the coach was expected to know it all.  Set off on the exploration together and use good quality questions to get to the destination together.
4. Listen up    Our top 10 list would be incomplete if the next tip following great questions wasn’t about great listening.  Forget about what’s going to come out of your mouth next, what happened in the last meeting or what you’re going to have for lunch: just listen.  Which questions are easy for the coachee to answer and which ones put them on the spot?  Listen to what they are saying and what they’re not saying and use your intuition to guide you.
5. Do your homework    Spend some time preparing for the coaching conversation.  What do you know already?  Where were they last time you talked?  What have they been doing recently?  Where do you think they want or need to be?  Don’t over think this stage and make sure that you can still ‘be human’ and flexible in the conversation.
6. Think ‘mindset’    Naturally, coaching must address knowledge and skill however don’t underestimate the power of attitude and mindset.  When all is said and done, we must want to develop or change our approach.  Remember: no will, no way!
7. Look who’s talking    Most of us know that the coachee should be doing most of the talking, although that’s easier said than done.  Sometimes, when we get going we do just love the sound of our own voices.  It’s natural enough for us to want to takeover, after all we are trying to help the coachee and give them the benefit of our wealth of knowledge, aren’t we?  Always aim for that golden rule of 70 / 30, with them doing 70% of the talking and use your great questioning and listening skills to get there.
8. What can they do    The conversation should be all about positive action that they can take, rather than what they can’t do or what is the responsibility of someone else.  Consider the responses to asking this question in different ways: What can they do?  What can they do?  What can they do? What can they do?
9. Lay your cards out    If you are having a natural and open conversation, it should be easy for you both to lay your cards on the table when you come to a brick wall or a stumbling point.  Sometimes, if you’re not getting anywhere it just takes you to say so and ask what’s going on for the coachee.  Where are they right now?  What aren’t they telling you?
10. To be continued    And finally of course, you and the coachee can have the most earth shatteringly enlightening conversation ever, but it still needs you as the coach to follow up on what was agreed to keep things moving.  Agree with them what this follow-up looks like (remember: they decide), and always keep your side of the follow-up bargain.

How many did you check off and what are your top tips for better coaching?  Let us know in the comments below!

Right Trax Training are a training, development and consultancy business who are passionate about helping other businesses be successful through their people and teams.  They can help your managers to be better coaches too.  Get in touch to find out how.