This is the fourth month in our four-month series about how to create a learning culture in your organization. As you recall there are three big efforts that your organization must be accountable for in order to have a learning culture that thrives. The three things that you need to build into your organization to ensure you have a learning culture are:
You need to be sure that all employees know how to learn.
You can help employees take control of their own career development.
You can help supervisors and managers coach their employees.
This month we’ll examine number three: coaching. This month is going to be ultra-practical for all of you readers. I am going to give you lots of tools to help others be good coaches. I’ll be talking about how you can help supervisors and leaders coach their employees. I’ll give you tasks that you can pass on to supervisors and managers. But actually, these suggestions are good for everyone, because everyone needs to learn good coaching skills. I’m excited to share my ideas with you. In his “HR Predictions for 2022,” Josh Bersin states that “Coaching will develop power skills in everyone.” But coaching should be something that your supervisors and managers do every day with their employees. I use the word coaching because it is a solution that reduces the cost and can benefit everyone. Your organization needs skill development faster than trainers and the training department can deliver. That means this third requirement is absolutely critical if your organization’s employees have the skills and knowledge to help it achieve its goals. Your employees need innovative ways to ensure your company stays ahead of the competition, reduces costs, increases profits, maintains its workforce, and solves problems. The world is changing, and your employees need skills and knowledge to meet the demands that your organization is facing. Coaching, training, mentoring, and all of their variations are paths to skill development. But it starts with the organization and its managers. As I said, you can’t deliver all the training yourself. You need to start by getting your managers on your team. You can do that by teaching them how to be better coaches. 如何成为一位值得信任的顾问？ 在《培训》杂志“纽约通讯”伊莱恩·碧柯女士每期分享“发力点+N套方法”快来一键get成长秘籍吧～ Help Managers Be Better Coaches You will want to improve your supervisors’ and managers’ coaching and development skills. What developmental skills should your managers have? Here are a few skills to get you started. Ensure that your managers and supervisors know how to do all these things. I suggest that you meet with your managers and supervisors who want to be better at developing their employees and ask them which of these skills they think they do well and which skills they would like you to help them with. Develop an employee’s individual development plan (IDP). This is a great place to start because it requires that the manager and employee have a discussion about career goals. IDPs provide a blueprint for each employee and are especially useful since they record and track goals, identify developmental strategies, and document accomplishments. Managers should discuss each employee’s IDP at least every three months. Offer development options beyond the job. Employees learn new skills and obtain a better understanding of how the organization works if they have opportunities to develop outside their departments. Managers can use tools such as: shadowing (following) someone else who has skills the person needs, stretch assignments, rotational assignments to other departments, and job swaps. Inform employees about new opportunities. Managers can keep employees informed. Whether it is a job opening, a place on a cross-functional team, or a temporary role, each offers an opportunity for employees to learn about the entire organization and become more valuable to the organization. Set performance metrics. Metrics tell employees what the goal is. Incremental objectives are established so that employees see progress. Managers should discuss metrics at least once each month or more. Give employees what they want. Generally what employees want isn’t unreasonable: Honesty, fairness, trust, support, and respect. Managers can easily work these into their days if they just think about them ahead.Managers need to ask people for ideas, act on them, and give credit to their employees. Suggest networks. Managers can help employees find mentors, coaches, professional associations, or a learning community of practice. Employees who link with others grow from the relationships. Communicate the organization’s strategy and direction. Employees can keep their career aligned to the organization with this information. As the organization pursues new opportunities employees will have the option of developing the skills that will be required. Invest. Whether it is spending money so the employee can attend a conference or allowing time to meet with an onsite book club, managers need to invest in their employees’ development. Remove barriers. Managers need to find a way to run interference for employees. Make introductions, bridge departments, and find ways to help employees continue to learn. Accept mistakes. Managers need to be okay with unintentional mistakes.No one wants things to go wrong. No one plans it. But when it does, it is a great opportunity to reflect, learn, and try again. We all learn more when we make a mistake. Cultivate a growth mindset. Managers can ensure that all their employees have a growth mindset regarding their own and their teammates’ potential. A growth mindset (Carol Dweck’s work) means that you believe you have the ability to learn. Managers can help their people believe in themselves and feel that their skills and intelligence can be improved with effort and persistence. Be a great role model. Probably the best thing a manager can do is to demonstrate that learning is important. Accept feedback and be open to bad news. Managers can help you facilitate classes for your training department. Finally, managers and supervisors need to invest in their own learning and should share what they are learning. What went well?What didn’t go as well as you would have liked?What will you do differently next time?
Help Managers Give Better Feedback One specific thing you can do is to help managers understand the value of feedback when it is tied to examples. This helps employees learn incrementally. Feedback should be both constructive changes and reinforcing comments and it should be timely. Tell managers to think about the last sporting event they attended. Did the coach wait until the end of the game to tell the players what to do? Of course not. Coaches are constantly coaching them throughout the game. It's important to provide feedback at the time that the employee can use it the most—when the behavior occurs. When executed well, delivering feedback can impact employee performance by more than 25 percent. Feedback should be used to recommend further improvements and tied to data or examples when possible. Unfortunately, many managers have difficulty being candid and honest. Your training department can help them be better by offering resources and practice session about feedback. Start by sharing these concepts with your managers.
Schedule sufficient time in a private setting.
Rehearse the conversation prior to the meeting.
If you are giving positive and developmental feedback, begin with strengths first.
Listen, listen, listen; aim for a 50/50 discussion.
Focus development areas on employee behaviors, not personality traits.
Provide examples to substantiate the feedback.
Tie improvement ideas to the employee’s strengths when possible.
Use clear and specific language during the discussion.
Solicit the employee’s questions or comments throughout.
Obtain the employee’s commitment to address the feedback.
Offer your assistance.
End on a positive note and discuss next steps.
Feedback seems to be difficult for many managers. Yet, in order for managers be able to develop their employees they need to be able to give feedback. Managers need to ensure their feedback is authentic, specific, candid, and judgment-free. They need to be empathetic and compassionate. Employees want the negative feedback that managers hate to give. On his Harvard Business Reviewblog, Jack Zenger collected data from 899 individuals, 49 percent from the U.S. and the remainder from abroad. They found that people want corrective feedback more than praise if it’s provided in a constructive manner. People believe it does more to improve their performance than positive feedback. Help your managers value positive feedback as well as corrective feedback.
Development Ideas for Managers and Supervisors You can do many things to help supervisors and managers complete their role as employee developers. The “Manager’s Employee Development Ideas Checklist” at the end of this article can be helpful to new supervisors or managers who just need a boost. Give a copy to them so they have a handy list of ideas they can use to develop their employees. 本文来源于培训杂志微信公众号（ID:trainingmagazine）。文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表“培训杂志”立场。