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Management Development Secrets – Easy Coaching For Your People

There are many ways to develop those employees that you have within your team. Some are more productive than others and depend on your own, personal management style.

The easiest way is to ensure that you use the momentum each individual has within themselves and radically multiply that for them – and you & your team.

When we manage, we use the services of the individuals in our teams, to pull together to create a valuable return on our investment in them.

A lot of a manager’s time is spent focusing on ensuring that they do what we want them to do and chasing them till they do.

We can fire instructions all day long – and then tomorrow, come right back for more which, frankly, makes for a day’s hard work, every day of your career.

Or we can coach.

Over the last few years, coaching has got a bit of a reputation.

From a weird and wonderful ‘mumbo-jumbo’ new age activity (the ‘life-coaching’ thing), right through to seriously expensive executive coaching at the highest level, coaching comes in all shapes and forms.

For managers, it’s a behavior; a style of way of working that’s useful and effective and doesn’t require loads of time one-on-one and face-to-face with someone sitting across from you in your office for a couple of hours.

Coaching is best done in the informal relationships you have with your people, in the easy and regular conversations you have with them all the time.

The truth is that it’s not hard to find out for yourself what coaching is all about – and as you master it as a skill, you will have all you need to be a very effective – and attractive – manager style.

There are books and programs out there that offer instruction and advice about what to do first and second and last. The truth is that coaching isn’t that difficult at all – the experts and gurus just make it out to be!

Forget the huge expense and months, if not years, of exclusive and extravagant training, be it online, via conference call or as many away-days that you can squeeze in.

It’s always best to find ways to make it easy for you, with relevant, quick and simple action steps to use every day, to help you make the most of this amazing skill.

When you seek the information you need to understand what coaching is all about, you want to find only as much as you need to make this work really well for you. The information and skills you seek will be geared to simple application and practice, leading to a growing confidence inside yourself with results to boot.

Coaching is not at all complicated, whatever you might hear, especially at the level a manager needs. Good questioning and listening skills, mixed in with a healthy dose of effective relationship building and you’re there.

And it is probably the most powerful management skill you can use, in whatever business or organization you are in, at whatever level of experience or skill you currently have.

Because having a coaching attitude, overlays everything we do in the way we support guide and manage those in our care as managers.

And that’s very powerful indeed!

(c) 2010 Martin Haworth. This is a short excerpt from one of 52 lessons in management development at Super Successful Manager!, an easy to use, step-by-step weekly development program for managers of EVERY skill level. Find out more at http://www.SuperSuccessfulManager.com.

Management Development Secrets – Four Advanced Coaching Skills

Coaching is a valuable talent that managers use when developing their people. It has the capacity to ensure that they perform to their very best, without telling them everything.

Sometimes it’s important to let them discover things for themselves.

The core activity of coaching is to ask questions that stimulate thinking and them listen a lot, to help that thinking process.

It requires practice and experience to become really good at it. managers are ideally placed to be good at coaching, because the nature of their role is with people. Interacting with them daily help develop the coaching skills and realizes potential as you go.

There are four useful additions to the questions and listening elements of the skill:-

Building Rapport

When you develop a close rapport with your people, you will find coaching much easier, because you already have a partnership going for you both.

If you have to formalize something as interactive as coaching without any previous work on relationship building, it’s going to be much more challenging, so that why it’s important to Build Rapport naturally.

The key here is to build rapport in every interaction you have with people by being interested in them all of the time.

That’s when it works best.

The Value of Trust

When there is a trusting culture in your team, you will be able to open a lot of doors that otherwise can remain shut.

A trusting relationship is much more likely to help an openness that will grow as trust builds. This openness is, in turn, great for getting to the bottom of challenging issues with people and letting them express themselves fully.

As a manager, being trusted is one of the most vital components to enable you to manage effectively, whilst also enabling your people to be of their very best.

Being sensitive to understanding what trust means in the eyes of your employees is one of the most important elements of a manager’s own self-development

Noticing Skills

There is another great tactic you can use, that makes a big difference in how you are perceived by your people.

People want to know they are appreciated and that the work they do is seen and valued, because we all like to have what we do recognized, whether it is in the workplace or anyplace at all.

The thing is – and this depends where you are in the world – when we get recognized for the good work we do, we can deny the thanks we are offered, so as managers, we need to nurture the ability in our people to accept praise when noticed.

Creating a team culture into a positive, productive ‘way we do things around here’ where everyone supports each other – by noticing.

Self-Management

The attitudes you demonstrate in the work you do, are a vital element of the way you ‘get on’ with your people.

Your own ‘Self Management’ as a coach, needs to be about recognizing the value of putting others first and leveraging their capabilities.

It means letting go a little, enabling others and taking risks with them. Being there to support, encourage and stretch them – as well as letting go of the complete control that you are so used to.

Self-management is about giving yourself permission to be more relaxed, knowing that you indeed have within you the capabilities to make this work through the way you manage your people.

Nothing replaces the core coaching skills of asking effective questions as well as listening closely to your people. With these additional tactics you can be even more skilled.

Management Skills – When It’s Best Not To Know

Sometimes, it’s easy to show that we are the boss, by always having the answers that our people need.

Yet the smartest managers don’t always share the answers they have.

You see, any manager wants to be the resource their people need. In fact, being able to solve problems your way is a great way to remind your people that’s the reason you are their manager, because you know the way to fix things.

Sometimes though, it will be valuable to be less than the cleverest person in the team, because letting them find out will help them in bigger ways as they develop and grow their skills.

The biggest challenge you will find in using this activity will be you. Your people will love it as they are utilized to share their ideas and solutions.

So, are you big enough to try this and not be the resource every time for the problems your people bring you, showing your ‘manager prowess’ off to fuel your own self-belief, important though that is in itself?

Many managers feel that by letting go of being ‘solution-finder’ they will lose respect, yet, quite simply, the truth is the opposite. Because no-one likes a know-it-all, so they stop respecting and start mocking any manager who seems to be perfect.

In fact any manager who decides to be Mr/Mrs Fix-It to all and sundry every time, will really struggle under the pressure and do a far worse job, because their people will start to dump problems that they certainly could resolve themselves on that smart manager’s desk.

Letting go of the ‘Fix-Everything’ persona is much more than how you perceive your people will see you in the world.

You see, you WANT to be the big cheese who solves everything. It’s an ego thing. And it’s only going to stand up for a while.

If you are big enough to make this small transition, your people will respect you much more when you are their development guide and show you value them by asking them for their own ideas and solutions.

Stretching, challenging and guiding them gently in much more appropriate and value-creating for your people over time.

Saying ‘I don’t know’ sometimes, is perfect for that and will raise you up in their eyes as long as you use this tool wisely and not every time you have something presented to you.

This is about disciplining yourself, in the moment, and expanding your React/Respond gap.

When you play with that, use delaying tactics and decide if ‘I don’t know’ will work this time, you will have a vital option that will make a much bigger difference to the performance of your people and team, than might have ever been possible before.

(c) 2010 Martin Haworth, Business and Management Coach and trainer, is the author of Super Successful Manager!, an easy to use, step-by-step weekly development program for managers of EVERY skill level. Find out more at http://www.SuperSuccessfulManager.com.

Team Building – The Hidden Gold That’s Out There!

Managing teams in your organization is a challenging experience. Finding the right people for the roles you have can be a tricky proposition, yet when you take the time to get to know your people, you might be surprised what you find.

We all want the best people in our team. The demands placed on us to deliver results from our role as managers are unremitting as must our search for the best people.

Surprisingly, there are individuals around who might offer more than you think. Employees that you already have in place can often carry talents that are hidden away, for a variety of reasons, so there are tactics a manager can adopt to ensure that all potential is realized.

Here are a few to get you started…

1. Keep your ears and eyes open – and engage in conversations that are curious about people.

Whatever happens, even if there are few gold nuggets out there, the worst thing is that people see you are interested in them.

There’s a zillion managers out there who aren’t at all interested in their people much at all, so you will immediately get brownie points at the very least!

2. Know that there’s talent out there – that you can bring out.

People have all sorts of skills, experiences and histories that might be of value, if only you knew about it.

You can’t find that out unless you get amongst them and find out!

3. Your people will hide their aspirations – because they think you aren’t that interested in them.

Sad but true, work experience isn’t the best place for people to see the generous nature of managers.

Far from it. In fact their experience will tell them that a manager may well not even care to know their name.

4. You can make it happen for them – when you know about it.

When you do find out about what they are looking for, it’s a real big help to you, for them and you and your business.

Your role can be enabling for them, by kick-starting new careers that their capabilities could support.

5. Management is often about joining the dots – that you’ve discovered.

See where this is going?

As a manager, your prime role is to lead and facilitate the people in your team, not to do everything yourself.

When you are that link, with what you find out, then there’s a whole new bunch of opportunities out there.

Listening to your people, letting them spill their hidden talents as well as their hopes for the future, can be a true win-win.

6. Management is about people – not doing stuff, however attractive that might be.

No-one minds a manager giving a hand now and then, it’s a choice, not to be depended on. But the role is about people, managing them is the headline, yet it’s so much more.

Great managers are there to make the best business decisions and these can easily be the best people decisions too.

In fact, when there is a coming together of business needs matched with individual’s possibilities, there can be no better way forward.

Your people are chock-full of potential. Releasing it will help you, help them, to make your team much more successful.

Delegation – 5 Simple Actions You Can Take Today

Try these five tactics, today!

Become more aware of others who share their important work with you – watch how well they do it – note the benefits; to them; to you! See – it works!
Note those things you do in your work, that someone else could and create a plan to give them all away within one week. Take time to plan it and show people what you want. Then plan to delegate more next week & on.
Can’t decide? What would you do if you only had half the time (note:- do not think tactical or fire-fighting here – someone else has (or should have) that job).
Ask your people what they would like to take on that you do now – where do you get in their way? Let them have it!
Encourage this down the line – who can your people share key tasks with? Be the model – help them do this too.
Figure out what you can do with all that lovely time. Scared? Don’t be – look for growth opportunities – people; marketing; future things (See ‘Q2 time’ – Begin with the End in Mind Chapter – Covey’s Seven habits).

Delegation is a valuable tactic to free up your valuable time, as well as enlightening your people with an understanding of the capacity they have to do more, learn and develop.

Delegation – The Most Vital Role For Every Manager

As a manager, it’s useful to understand what delegation is and how valuable it can be for you. In fact, any business is usually run by managers operating at various levels who all need to delegate authority and tasks to their team members, so that they themselves can handle more relevant activities.

Some tasks are delegated as a matter of routine, while others are so important that managers decide these kinds of tasks more suitable for their personal attention and hence will not be delegated.

It is therefore important to ensure that you know which tasks are appropriate for delegation and those which should not be.

For many managers, delegating work and authority seems to be nothing more than a means of exercising free will in handing down tasks and responsibilities to others, who must then complete the task assigned to them and be accountable for the outcomes.

However, in its truest sense, delegating tasks and authority is not really an exercise of free will; it is meant to be a means whereby a manager can alleviate heavy workload and additional responsibilities that they cannot do on their own.

By delegating some work and authority to others, it allows you to free your time and focus on doing more important work.

Nor is delegating authority and work is such a simple thing; for those who have never delegated before, chances are that they can make it difficult for themselves – because they do not know what is really required of them to get bit right.

To successfully delegate, you will need to have certain skills, patience, confidence and some courage too. With these attributes can should be able to delegate successfully.

Another question that you will need to answer is just how will you benefit by delegating work or authority! Effective delegation means picking the right person to do the right task – choosing a responsible person who can be given certain amount of authority to get things done.

However, even after delegating work/authority your job will not end there because you are, after all, going to be held responsible for the outcome for that you have delegated. You will always need to ensure that the work delegated is performed according to your high standards.

As a matter of fact, many companies view delegating tasks to be a means of developing an employee’s capabilities. When you delegate you will be giving an employee more responsibility, which in turn can act as a motivating force for them to complete the task in the manner you require.

After delegating activities, you will then need to look at the work done by the employee and use their performance as a yardstick with which to measure their effectiveness.

Someone who performs their delegated work well and shoulders responsibility in a desired manner can be developed further, perhaps leading to later promotion, while an employee that fails to produce desired results may be best left at their existing level.

The bottom line is that managers can use delegation as a means to resolve short-term activities, where they themselves need support.

In fact, by delegating it is possible to create enough time to personally deal with more important tasks, improving effectiveness, whilst being more efficient in your work, whilst developing your people too.

A good manager who delegates, will be able to manage better and those entrusted with new and interesting tasks will be more motivated and committed to their work – and an amazing win-win that works for all.