Day to Day Coaching

7/25/2019 Day to Day Coaching

1/161 2006 Corporate Executive Board. All Rights Reserved.

Day-to-Day Coaching

Although managers spend approximately 20% of their time developing their employees, their efforts are rated as very ineffeca majority of their teams.

In an ideal world, managers would be able to assign employees projects based on the skills they need to develop to succeed atlevels and beyond. The reality, however, is that managers must assign projects according to employee strengths to achieve buAttempting to address development areas through job rotations or stretch roles also presents a challenge, as these opportunitieoften scarce. Therefore, managers must rely almost entirely on their employees daily work to serve as the platform for their cdevelopment efforts.

As such, this guide is designed to help managers improve their coaching efforts by using their employees job tasks, assignmand responsibilities to develop the skills employees need. Additionally, the guide will help managers identify in-the-moment opportunitiesunexpected events that hold valuable lessons employees can use and apply to further develop their skills.

This guide is divided into two sections:Section I: Planned Coaching Opportunities

Section II: Coaching In the Moment

Learning and Development Roundtable



Table of Contents

Section I: Planned Coaching Opportunities .................................................................................................................................Overview ..............................................................................................................................................................................Development Through Your Work Instructions .................................................................................................................Development Through Your Work ........................................................................................................................................Anticipate, Act, Reect Summary ........................................................................................................................................Simple Questions to Ask Before, During, and After Planned Development Experiences ...................................................Applying Lessons to My Future WorkInstructions ...........................................................................................................Applying Lessons to My Future Work ..................................................................................................................................

Section II: Coaching In the Moment ............................................................................................................................................Overview ...............................................................................................................................................................................In-the-Moment Coaching Opportunities Instructions .......................................................................................................In-the-Moment Coaching Opportunities ...............................................................................................................................Simple Questions to Coach In the Moment ...........................................................................................................................





Section I:

Planned CoachingOpportunities



Overview

Use Current Employee Tasks, Jobs, and Responsibilities to Build Targeted Skills

In a perfect world, managers would be able to assign projects, tasks, and responsibilities based on the skills employees develop. The reality is that most managers have to coach the hand they are dealttrying to build skills within a set ofdetermined by business need, not development need. Fortunately, most tasks or projects have many developmental compby thinking creatively, a manager can use a current role to build a needed skill set.

To help your employees identify development opportunities within their current roles, please review the DeYour Work sheet on page 5.

Anticipate, Act, and Reect on Lessons Learned Through Daily Work

Many managers help their employees derive key lessons from their work by post-project discussions that focus on what what went wrong, and what an employee will change in the future. But by identifying the lessons one wants to learn beftask, or assignment begins, a manager and employee can ensure that development areas are being addressed.

Use the Anticipate, Act, and Reect summary on page 7 and Simple Questions to Ask Before, During, anDevelopment Experiences on page 8 to maximize the lessons learned in daily work.

Applying Lessons Learned Increases Their Value

Identifying a key lesson from previous experience is only learning the lesson; the next step is ensuring that lesson is conapplied. Indeed, its not until an employee takes the lesson and incorporates it into his or her future behavior that the leslearned. By making employees accountable for applying the lessons from the past into their work in the future, you are eyour coaching efforts are building targeted skills.

Give your employees the Applying Lessons Learned to My Future Work sheet on page 9 to help them reetheyve learned and identify opportunities to apply them in the future.

Day-to-Day CoachingSection I: Planned

Coaching Opportunities


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Task: Serving as a Mentor for a New Member of the TeamCurrent Assignment

Stretch Role

Critical Components of the Role Skill Area(s) Needed

Create a checklist for the new team member letting him or her knowwhat to do rst Process management

Help the new team member learn a skill or process Coaching

Help the new team member understand how things really work Commun

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Task: Managing a ProjectCurrent Assignment

Stretch Role


Scoping out the project and building a business case Business acum

Creating a project plan Project management

Holding others on the team accountable for reaching project milestoneson time People management

Presenting results to others on the team, other business units, or seniorleaders Communication

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Developing Through Your WorkInstructions

From a development perspective, it would be ideal if managers could projects based on the development needs of their team. assignments are determined by business need, and managers have to rely on an employees current portfolio of activities to buidentied as development areas.

This checklistwhich can be incorporated into the project planning processis designed to help your employees think creatparticular job, task, or assignment to identify components that can target development areas. This sheet is not a requirementmeant to assist your employees if they are having difculty understanding how they can use their current work to develop. Thbelow demonstrate how one employee uses the sheet to nd opportunities to develop his or her communication skills.




Focus your coaching efforts on the components of a taor assignment that build a skill in a development area





Developing Through Your Work

Many times we receive assignments that do not appear to be ideally suited to helping us achieve our development goals. Howassignment, task, project, or role has a number of critical components that must be completed to ensure its success. If you are difculty seeing how your current projects can help you achieve your development goals, take the time to ll out the sheet be3 to 5 critical components of each project and the skills they require. You can then focus your development efforts on a projecwhich builds a skill that youve identied as a development area.


Task:Current Assignment

Stretch Role


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Task:Current Assignment

Stretch Role


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How can employees applythese lessons to their work?

Which experiences shouldemployees pursue and what lessons

should employees expect to learn?

How can employees incorporatethese experiences into their work?

What lessons did employees learnfrom their experiences (and mistakes)?



Anticipate, Act, and Reect

Its not enough to focus on key lessons learned after the fact. Managers who encourage their employees to anticipate, act, andkey lessons before, during, and after a project, assignment, or task ensure important lessons are identied, critical skills are bcoaching efforts are maximized.


Reect

Anticipate

Act

You can better focus your coaching efforts if you identifydevelopment goals before the project starts.






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Simple Questions to Ask Before, During,and After Planned Development Experiences

The questions below can be used at various project stages. These are merely suggestions, and managers are free to use their oto ensure that critical lessons are identied and learned and that employees are planning to apply these lessons in the future.

Pre-Activity

What do you hope to learn from this project? What will you be able to do differently? What do you need or expect of me?

During Activity

Where do you feel that you are improving your skills? Where do you feel that you are struggling? Where do you need me to support through coaching?

Post-Activity (To be answered by employee before meeting with manager)

What did I learn? Did I reach the goals I laid out before the project started? Did I make improvements in my skill(s)? Where can I use this skill in my daily work? How can my manager help me apply this skill?

Post-Activity (For discussion with manager)

Where do you feel you succeeded? Where did you struggle? If you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently? What is the most important lesson you learned? Where can I apply this lesson in the future?





Applying Lessonsto My Future WorkInstructions

The sheet on the following page is meant for your employees to use as they 1) reect upon their experiences, 2) identify criticlearned, 3) create a plan for applying those lessons in the future, and 4) note the milestones they will use to track their progrescan be used informally to prepare for a development conversation between you and your employee or formallyas a methodemployee accountable for applying lessons learned.






Applying Lessons to My Future Work

Once a project is over, its important not only to think about the lessons youve learned, but to develop a plan for applying theThese questions are designed to help you 1) reect upon your experiences, 2) identify critical lessons learned, 3) create a planthese lessons, and 4) note the milestones you will use to track your progress.

Project/Task:

What lessons did I learn in the past that I applied to this project? _____________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________

What did I nd the most challenging? ___________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________

What did I do well? _________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________

What will I do differently in the future? _________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________

Where can I apply these lessons to my job in the future? ___________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________

What milestones will I use to measure success? Who will I enlist to hold me accountable forapplying these lessons? ______________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________





Section II:

Coaching In the Moment



Overview

Everyday Interactions Can Provide Rich Coaching OpportunitiesWhile creating a plan to achieve development objectives through current projects is critical to ensuring those goals are mnumber of unexpected eventssuch as project successes or failuresthat also provide opportunities to learn. Indeed, moverlook these events, focusing solely on their business impact and missing the opportunity to coach in the moment. Byframeworks, managers can further develop their employees through the identication of new lessons and the reinforcem

To review coaching opportunities that you may have missed, please view In-the-Moment Coaching Opportu

Address Pressing Business Issues BEFORE Taking Advantage of In-the-Moment Coaching Opportunities

An important caveat as you seek to take advantage of unexpected coaching moments: if there are critical business issuesimportant to address them rst. If you focus on the development opportunity at the expense of the business issue you risany existing problems.

Focus on Key Questions to Transform Daily Interactions into Coaching Moments

Using a framework of questions to identify critical lessons can help ensure you are not only capturing these lessons, but changing the quality of your daily employee interactions. Its important to note however that not every interaction with ais a coaching opportunity; if you insist on making every interaction a coaching opportunity, you risk creating the percepemployees efforts are never good enough.

Use 5 Simple Questions to Coach In the Moment on page 15 to help you turn everyday interactions into vacoaching moments.

Day-to-Day CoachingSection II: Coaching In the Moment


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EmployeeName Day What did the employee and I talk about?

What questions could I have askedto make this a coaching opportunity?

M. Jones Monday

Mike asked me the best way to

approach a very demanding customer, andI immediately answered his question.

I could have asked Mike what ache was considering rst, and his

reservations about why it wasntbest course of action. Then we cohave discussed strategies togethe

S. Lee ThursdayWe met for an unscheduled projectcheck-in.I could have not only focused onand timelines, but asked what shmost excited about or what she lein the last week.

In-the-Moment CoachingOpportunitiesInstructions

If youre like most managers, you often view coaching as a fairly formal activityyou often set time aside in your calendar toemployee a new skill or procedure, provide formal or informal feedback, or review a recently completed project. By taking addaily interactions you have with your employees (e.g., project updates, questions regarding next steps) you can make coachindaily routine. Most importantly, you can improve the quality of your interactions and strengthen your relationships.

To help you recognize future unexpected coaching opportunities, use the sheet on the following page to identify opportunitieshave missed in the past. What interactions have you had over the last two weeks that would have served as opportunities to coemployees?

Day-to-Day CoachingSection II: Coaching In the Moment


Asking for an employees thoughts before immediately

answering a question provides an opportunity tounderstand where he or she is struggling and put him orher on the right track.



In-the-Moment Coaching Opportunities

Use this sheet to review where you may have missed an unexpected coaching opportunity across the last two weeks. By recogmissed opportunities to coach and reinforce critical lessons in the past, youre improving your ability to recognize and capitalopportunities in the future.

Learning and Development Roundtable Day-to-Day CoachingSection II: Coaching In the Moment

EmployeeName Day What did the employee and I talk about?

What questions could I have askedto make this a coaching opportunity?



Where did you need to use X skill to get things done?

Where did you feel comfortable in your use of X skill?

Where did you feel that your X skill was not as strong as it couldhave been?

What key lesson did you learn with regard to your X skill?

How will you use X skill differently in the future?

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Learning and Development Roundtable Day-to-Day CoachingSection II: Coaching In the Moment

5 Simple Questions to Coach In the Moment

The best coaching opportunities are often the ones you cannot plan for. Once youve recognized an unexpected opportunity toemployees in the moment, use the 5 questions below to capitalize on it.For example, if a customer calls raving about a member of your team, you can use the opportunity to reinforce a developmentcommunication. By focusing on how your employee used communication skills effectively or ineffectively, what lesson he orhow he or she plans to apply this lesson, youve helped ensure that this success will be repeated in the future.


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Note to Members

This project was researched and written to full l the research requests of several members of the Corporate Executive Board and as a result may not satisfy theinformation needs of all member companies. The Corporate Executive Board encourages members who have additional questions about this topic to contactthe Board staf f for further discussion. Descriptions or viewpoints contained herein regarding organizations proled in this report do not necessarily reectthe policies or viewpoints of t hose organizations.

Condentiality of Findings

This document has been prepared by the Corporate Executive Board for the exclusive use of its members. It contains valuable proprietary informat ion belongingto the Corporate Executive Board and each member should make it available only to those employees who require such access in order to learn from thematerial provided herein and who undertake not to disclose it to third part ies. In the event that you are unwil ling to assume this condentiality obligation,please return this document and all copies in your possession promptly to the Corporate Executive Board.

Legal Caveat

The Learning and Development Roundtable has worked to ensure the accuracy of the information it provides to its members. This report relies upon dataobtained from many sources, however, and the Learning and Development Roundtable cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information or its analysis inall cases. Furthermore, the Learning and Development Roundtable is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional serv ices. Its reportsshould not be construed as professional advice on any particular set of facts or circumstances. Members requiring such services are advised to consult anappropriate professional. Neither the Corporate Executive Board nor its programs are responsible for any claims or losses that may arise from a) any errorsor omissions in their reports, whether caused by the Learning and Development Roundtable or its sources, or b) reliance upon any recommendation made bythe Learning and Development Roundtable.

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