The 10 Coaching Commandments

1. Suspend your own personal judgments
You can’t like everyone in your team. What impact does liking or disliking a team member have on your relationship with them?
We already know that your perspective changes depending on which team member you are looking at. It’s a lot easier to coach someone you like and feel at ease with. Much as we may wish it was different, we can’t like everyone we work with. Are you the kind of manager who cuts people you like a little more slack? Or are you the kind of manager who is tougher on the people you like and easier on people you don’t like, to compensate? Either way, you’re responding like a human being to another human being. Don’t beat yourself up about it, but be aware of how it impacts on the coaching dynamic.

2. Separate characteristics from Factors affecting performance
Separate characteristics from factors affecting performance by thinking of as many factors as possible that causes the performance gaps you are confident you have witnessed that are backed up by evidence and solid facts. It is very important to brainstorm as many possible causes of performance gaps as possible cause this will be the main framework of your performance evaluation and observation then the next step is to divide the causes into two categories:

a - Characteristics : which are all the personal traits, skills and capabilities  that the team member brings into his/her performance (Attitudes, Skills and knowledge)

b-  Factors affecting performance : Those things beyond your team member's control The next step is to revisit the list of characteristics and factors affecting performance and look for evidence to support or counter each. At this point, it is not unusual to discover that all the contributory factors are factors affecting performance rather than characteristics. This means you need to take off your coaching hat,put on your manager hat, and sort out the factors. Supposing, however, you find that in a missed deadlines problem there is evidence of poor time management and coordinating skills? Well, now you know which characteristics you’re working with.

 3. What happened that confirms this behavior needs changing?
What do you see and hear in the other person’s behavior that tells you something isn’t good enough? For example, you see this person arriving late for work every morning, and hear the same excuses about traffic.

4. After changes are made, how can I evaluate that these changes are effective and the situation now is good enough?
What do you need to see and hear to indicate that the person has made the necessary change? In the example, you’ll see this person at her desk and ready to work at the expected time, just like the rest of the team.

5. Ask questions rather than make statements. 
That approach both allows individuals the responsibility of reaching their own conclusions and forces them to think about the issues. "How else could you have reacted when ......?" rather than "You should have ........!"  (The previous examples could all useful be re-worded as questions:  "How do you think it looked to the interviewee when he saw you gripping your pencil so tightly that your knuckles went white?" and "How did she react when you started to shout?"). See also: Asking Questions

6. Comment on the thing- that an individual did we!!, as well as areas for improvement.
It is important that people feel empowered by the process if they are to work positively at improving their performance. If the experience leaves them feeling inadequate or humiliated, it will have been counterproductive. Because of our cultural inhibitions about accepting praise, it is particularly important that praise is sincere and given about very specific items of behaviour. In that way, even the most diffident person will accept it. 

7. Let them give you their story and experience in a " Narrative rich discussion"
Narrative-rich discussions are those in which you basically get someone to tell you the whole story of the event. If they give you the little details, the nuances, their feelings (all the story’s local colour), you can learn so much more about what’s happening than you can with a ‘just give me the hard facts’ approach.

8. Jointly agree development tactics
How will the person go about achieving success? You could help by doing it yourself (ie. People can learn effectively from you in some important respects through observing you as the model of how something should be done). You could also achieve significant change by rewarding appropriate behaviour when you observe it.More likely though, you will need to develop a clear plan, covering the following ground: • What can you do yourself?
• What can other people including myself do to help?
• How will you go about it?
• Who will be involved?
• What methods will be used?
• What is likely to get in the way and make life difficult. Ie. Anticipate any known or likely difficulties and have contingency plans for handling them?

9. Monitor Progress & Follow-up
How will progress be recognized? How will it be measured? Balance the person’s accountability against the need to learn, bearing in mind that learning sometimes leads to mistakes being made. Plan for systematic reporting back and create a climate of openness and frankness for when this happens.

10. Always allow enough time for the coaching session.
A proper coaching session is not something to be rushed or done on the fly. It is a process that requires a lot of preparation and planning to achieve the desired outcome and actually help your team member overcome a specific performance problem. You may find that your discussion with the coachee about his or her needs and the subsequent objective setting is going to take longer than you thought. The best thing to do in this situation is to end the meeting once you have analysed the needs and to set another time where you will discuss objectives. As soon as you are aware that time is running out, you should start to renegotiate how you will complete this stage.

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