- Communicate clearly. Listen with full concentration on what is said. What is the underlying message? Periodically relay back what you think you have heard to be sure you understand. Remove distractions. Make eye contact and observe body language.
- Be quiet. Avoid jumping to conclusions. Pause before responding.
- Involve the person you coach in identifying issues and setting goals. Likewise, involve her or him in solving problems and making decisions.
- Set high standards. The standards you set and emulate are the most you can expect from your people.
- Define what “positive results” look like and how performance is measured and tracked with the person.
- Explain why a particular approach is being taken, especially if the approach differs from that which was mutually determined.
- The more you delegate to others, the more others learn. Provide resources so that others can succeed. Develop your own secession plan by delegating to and growing others.
- Involve people in your thinking so that others will know, understand, learn, and support the process leading to a particular decision.
“I keep six honest serving [men]. They taught me all I knew.
Their names are What and Why and When, and How and Where and Who.”
– Rudyard Kipling, From “Just So Stories”, 1902