New Leadership

Few new leaders have the initial skills to instill the tough-to-teach qualities of customer service, attitude, and bottom-line orientation in team members without sacrificing their own time or performance.

Whether you are a new and relatively “green” supervisor or a 20-year veteran of team leadership, the most important thing you can do to facilitate the growth of individual team members is to ask the right questions, especially when working with new team members.

As a former Olympic coach, I have come to understand that there is really no difference between an elite athlete and an employee when it comes to development and performance. The conversation must start with an evaluation of where the individual is currently and where he or she wants to go. The end result is very much dependent on what the individual is willing to do from the outset.

Whether training for an Olympic team or contributing toward a team sales goal, a person must reflect on what he or she is ready to do.

After the end goal is established, it is possible to build a bridge to close the gap between present skills and future performance.

Ask the Right Questions

First, let's consider some of the critical questions we can ask team members, in order to evaluate where they see themselves on a variety of performance-based topics:

• What motivates you to give your best on the job? Are you willing AND able (there is a difference here, so make sure you understand that willingness is linked to motivation and that ability is linked to skills required) to assist the team in achieving its goals, as agreed on by all team members?
• What specifically are you willing to do to help the team succeed?
• What can I do as your supervisor to help you achieve your goals?
• How do you prefer to be led or supervised? In other words, do you prefer lots of assistance and checkups, or relative autonomy?
• What sort of position/salary do you see for yourself in a year’s time, and how can I help you achieve that?

It's easy to see by these questions that the direction things take is highly dependent on your employee’s responses. Furthermore, the key to most of these questions lies in the following:

1. The willingness of a team member to jump on board and contribute.
2. The ability, or current skill sets necessary, to make that contribution.

As the employee's "coach," you don't need to go any further if he or she can't be recruited to help achieve the overall team vision.

A lot of valuable time has been saved here. If your employees are motivated but lack the ability to contribute, then it becomes time to establish what skills they are deficient in as they work toward the goals established. Your job is not necessarily to teach them, but to provide the resources and training that will help them. The Internet offers a nearly infinite number of solutions here, and our own company can help provide the initial assessment with instruments like DiSC® [1] and Managing Work Expectations® [2]. Or, go to www.traininginabox.com [3] to find the evaluation tool you need.

Also consider getting formal coaching training from companies like www.coaching.com [4].

Gaining Commitment

Finally, in both elite athletics and employee development, long-term commitment is certainly a consideration. You should be able to find this out from that first conversation you have.

It's possible that your employee will notice your commitment to their performance and career from even one conversation--and at the very least, commitment is improved. (When was the last time someone asked you where would you like to be in a year and really helped you make that happen?)

Also, the simple question-asking event goes a long way to help you recruit this team member. After all, the responses he or she gives will be in words and emotions that will help link this employee to your team through a very subtle version of “buy-in.” The team member is admitting to you, in essence, how far he or she is willing to commit to the goals of the team.

In business, like top-level athletics, a coach has to establish the motivation and talents of the individual to best build the ladder that will get them from their current state of performance to the proverbial "podium and gold medal."

Effective coaches understand this concept and are able to apply it to their teams for truly spectacular performance.

For tips to effectively train your people and streamline your organization, and for other solutions to your staffing challenges, visit www.traininginabox.com [5]. Sign up for our free newsletter at www.quicktrainingsolutions.com [5] to make your HR training and development life easier. Corey Nielsen designs and delivers innovative and effective training solutions for businesses through NTG, his business development and training company.

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