If you run a team of any sort you’ll know it’s important to get the best out of them. You might know that, but what do you do to ensure it happens? B4’s Editor, Richard Rosser, spent two days on an Oxford Professional Consulting course “Coaching Skills for Managers” led by Alison Haill, to find out about fine-tuning your team.
Written by: Richard Rosser
I haven’t been on a serious training course for about twenty years. I know that’s not good, nor something to be proud of, let alone print in a magazine! But I trust Alison and believed her when she told me it would be worth taking time out of the office….she was right.
Along with five other delegates, through case studies, handy techniques, practical exercises, sharing our own experiences and solving problems, I learnt about the coaching approach to managing people and came away with excellent ideas and new skills to put into practice with my team. Here are 5 key lessons learned:
1. Listen
Listen more. Deep listening, without jumping in, is a skill which will provide you with more information about your colleagues and help them achieve point 2, below.
2. Allow your team to think for themselves
Let your colleagues come up with the solutions to problems – don’t do the thinking for them. They’ll
feel more of a sense of achievement if they are allowed the freedom to think and suggest. They will become lazy if you continually provide them with the answers.
3. Set up a structure for regular 1:1 conversations
I’m sure, for many of you, it is already a routine. If it’s not, set it in motion. Listen to your team, find out their problems, allow them to set their own goals (aligned to company ones) and agree areas for improvement. Write it all down, date it and see how they have progressed in three months.
4. Discover your team’s skills
By arranging one to ones, get your team members to tell you what they like. You might discover, as I did,
that one of your team has a passion for something that you were thinking of hiring in. Gear work to your individual team member’s skills….it will make for a much more positive working environment. It can’t all be good, but if you at least know what the individuals like, then you can structure the working week to give a good balance between the mundane, necessary tasks and jobs they enjoy.
5. Be Positive and stay“above the line”
On the course I was surprised that nobody in the room had heard of the Radiator and Drain concept….where radiators radiate positive energy and drains drain it away. The ‘Above the Line’ concept encourages individuals to find solutions and be accountable instead of giving excuses and explanations, and to be positive. So it is similar to the Radiator and Drain idea.
Chris Bantock, Managing Director of BeSeen Marketing commented: “The course was extremely enlightening – I learned new tools and techniques for coaching which will be used to help staff, friends and family, not for a week after the course but for many years to come.“
Alison’s techniques were excellent and memorable. After the course she facilitated a follow up conference call as a refresher and to encourage us to implement the new skills. The results were very encouraging: each course participant had learned skills which, when put into action, had genuine and positive effects.
Find details about Alison’s courses and one to one training at the website below.
Next dates for this course: 6-7 January 2016
