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1 Author: [email protected] | Contact information: http://www.BhavinGandhi.com How to provide coaching to an experienced employee in your team? by Bhavin Gandhi Most of the managers think that their experienced employees, who are in their team from a long time, doesn’t require any coaching. If you are one of those managers, then let me stop you right there. You are completely wrong. In fact….your experienced employee will require more coaching than your new employee, since he is the one who will be defining the normal of your team, and maybe, become a mentor to your new employee. Right? Obviously, you will require a different coaching style to coach your experienced employee as compared to your new employee (as I have indicated in my last blog). Thus, in this blog I will provide you with few pointers to coach your experienced employees. Before I provide you with any strategies to coach your experienced employee (Mr. Y), let’s define what we expect from our experienced employees………We expect our experienced personnel to work on special projects and expand their circle of influence outside of your team, so that they can resolve few mission critical issues without your intervention. We also expect them to take ownership of few projects, and solve mission critical issues on their own. Some of the other expectations would be……training a new hire, defining new processes to improve efficiency, etc. Am I right? Since we depend on our experienced employees to get the job done and improve the productivity of our team, their coaching style needs to be very personalized and effective. Following are few strategies that I use with my experienced employees……. 1. Provide exposure: Since you already depend on Mr. Y; wouldn’t it be nice, if he can communicate directly with the cross functional team members, so that you can get the expected results? In order for Mr. Y to communicate with appropriate members from other teams, you need to provide him with various opportunities to work on cross-functional team. You can also provide company-wide exposure by introducing him to persons and areas beyond his current expertise. Sharing your larger network with him would be even better. 2. Provide time: Let’s say, you give Mr. Y with the responsibility to lead a project from development to implementation, or provide him with the opportunity to coach others. In both of these cases, you need to be slightly patient to see the outcomes from those efforts. Since, these responsibilities are very new for him, he

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Since we depend on our experienced employees to get the job done and improve the productivity of our team, their coaching style needs to be very personalized and effective. Following are few strategies that I use with my experienced employees……. 1. Provide exposure: Since you already depend on Mr. Y; wouldn’t it be nice, if he can communicate directly with the cross functional team members, so that you can get the expected results? In order for Mr. Y to communicate with appropriate members from other teams, you need to provide him with various opportunities to work on cross-functional team. You can also provide company-wide exposure by introducing him to persons and areas beyond his current expertise. Sharing your larger network with him would be even better. 2. Provide time: Let’s say, you give Mr. Y with the responsibility to lead a project from development to implementation, or provide him with the opportunity to coach others. In both of these cases, you need to be slightly patient to see the outcomes from those efforts. Since, these responsibilities are very new for him, he will take some time to learn and adjust to these responsibilities. Hence, don’t be frustrated, if you don’t see quick results. Provide him with some time to adjust to these new responsibilities, while closely monitoring his progress and providing needed help along the way. 3. Teach them to delegate: Since Mr. Y is an experienced employee, you might be using him for very special projects, and hence, his knowledge might be very specialized and rare. In order to coach him effectively, you need to teach him how he can delegate his tasks and transfer his knowledge. You need to encourage him to “let go” his activities and expertise to give others the opportunity to be an “expert”. 4. Provide training: You should involve your experienced employee in the selection, development and planning efforts, so that he can learn your style of decision making, and hopefully, use that knowledge to make future decisions on his own. His involvement in decision making will not only help you to get better informed with the day-to-day issues on the line, but it will also give him the opportunity to learn how mission critical decisions are taken. If your employee is inexperienced in coaching others, co-coach your new employees with him. This will give him the confidence in coaching others, while improving your trust relationship with him. I hope, these tips will help you to better coach your experienced employee in your team. Stay tuned for my next blog, where I will provide you with some pointers on how to coach your managers. In the meanwhile, if you have any other ideas through which you can provide effective coaching to your experienced employees, then please feel free to share it here. Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi.

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Page 1: How to provide coaching to your experienced employees

1 Author: [email protected] | Contact information: http://www.BhavinGandhi.com

How to provide coaching to an experienced employee in your team? by Bhavin Gandhi

Most of the managers think that their experienced employees, who are in their team from a long time, doesn’t

require any coaching. If you are one of those managers, then let me stop you right there. You are completely wrong.

In fact….your experienced employee will require more coaching than your new employee, since he is the one who

will be defining the normal of your team, and maybe, become a mentor to your new employee. Right? Obviously,

you will require a different coaching style to coach your experienced employee as compared to your new employee

(as I have indicated in my last blog). Thus, in this blog I will provide you with few pointers to coach your experienced

employees.

Before I provide you with any strategies to coach your experienced employee (Mr. Y), let’s define what we expect

from our experienced employees………We expect our experienced personnel to work on special projects and

expand their circle of influence outside of your team, so that they can resolve few mission critical issues without your

intervention. We also expect them to take ownership of few projects, and solve mission critical issues on their own.

Some of the other expectations would be……training a new hire, defining new processes to improve efficiency, etc.

Am I right?

Since we depend on our experienced employees to get the job done and improve the productivity of our team, their

coaching style needs to be very personalized and effective. Following are few strategies that I use with my

experienced employees…….

1. Provide exposure: Since you already depend on Mr. Y; wouldn’t it be nice, if he can communicate directly

with the cross functional team members, so that you can get the expected results? In order for Mr. Y to

communicate with appropriate members from other teams, you need to provide him with various opportunities

to work on cross-functional team. You can also provide company-wide exposure by introducing him to persons

and areas beyond his current expertise. Sharing your larger network with him would be even better.

2. Provide time: Let’s say, you give Mr. Y with the responsibility to lead a project from development to

implementation, or provide him with the opportunity to coach others. In both of these cases, you need to be

slightly patient to see the outcomes from those efforts. Since, these responsibilities are very new for him, he

Page 2: How to provide coaching to your experienced employees

2 Author: [email protected] | Contact information: http://www.BhavinGandhi.com

will take some time to learn and adjust to these responsibilities. Hence, don’t be frustrated, if you don’t see

quick results. Provide him with some time to adjust to these new responsibilities, while closely monitoring his

progress and providing needed help along the way.

3. Teach them to delegate: Since Mr. Y is an experienced employee, you might be using him for very special

projects, and hence, his knowledge might be very specialized and rare. In order to coach him effectively, you

need to teach him how he can delegate his tasks and transfer his knowledge. You need to encourage him to

“let go” his activities and expertise to give others the opportunity to be an “expert”.

4. Provide training: You should involve your experienced employee in the selection, development and planning

efforts, so that he can learn your style of decision making, and hopefully, use that knowledge to make future

decisions on his own. His involvement in decision making will not only help you to get better informed with the

day-to-day issues on the line, but it will also give him the opportunity to learn how mission critical decisions are

taken. If your employee is inexperienced in coaching others, co-coach your new employees with him. This will

give him the confidence in coaching others, while improving your trust relationship with him.

I hope, these tips will help you to better coach your experienced employee in your team. Stay tuned for my next

blog, where I will provide you with some pointers on how to coach your managers. In the meanwhile, if you have any

other ideas through which you can provide effective coaching to your experienced employees, then please feel free

to share it here.

Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi.

Bhavin Gandhi | February 7, 2013 at 9:30 AM | Tags: Coach experienced

employees, Coaching, Communication with employees, employee development,Employee growth, Leaders of

Tomorrow, Leadership, Management, Manager Training,Manager's Guide, Mentor your go-to

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