Coaching for Emotional Intelligence: The Secret to Developing the Star Potential in Your Employees

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IMPROVING YOUR DESCRIPTIVE SKILLS

using your arms to swing and not getting enough power behind the

bat with your wrists.’’

Telling someone they were ‘‘rude’’ and that they need to be

‘‘more polite’’ is about as useful as telling a batter he missed the ball

and that he should hit it from now on. Coaching must include detail

in order to be useful. Early in this chapter I asked you to write down

two examples of behaviors you observed recently, one that you liked

and one that needs improvement or correction. Are your examples

specific enough to understand or are they global and nonspecific

labels, leaving room for your associates to misunderstand what you

meant to say?

DESCRIBING PERFORMANCE IN

NEED OF IMPROVEMENT

When you provide corrective feedback, you must describe what as-

pect of performance was either below standards or could be im-

proved. You must also provide a clear description of what the person

needs to do to improve. ‘‘Don’t be that way’’ is not good enough.

Getting to specifics is not as simple as it might seem. In manage-

ment training events, I have to do a great deal of coaching to get

participants to be as specific and concrete in their language as they

need to be. This takes practice. You’ll find exercises in the Skill De-

velopment section at the end of this chapter. Please do them. The

time you invest will be more than worth it when you start applying

the coaching model presented in Chapter 7.

Look at the following list of examples. Each label is followed by

an example of a more descriptive example a coach might want to

address. But each label could be followed up by any number of dif-

ferent but equally specific examples. As you look at each example,

pause for a moment and think about your own associates. If you

were to coach someone about these areas of performance, what spe-

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COACHING FUNDAMENTALS

cific examples might you use to describe the performance of some-

one who reports to you?

Rude:

‘‘You interrupted a coworker as she was making a suggestion

and told her that she didn’t know what she was talking

about. You used a loud, angry tone of voice and your facial

expression conveyed the impression that you thought she

was stupid and clueless.’’

Unreliable:

‘‘Over the past three weeks I have given you six different

assignments to complete by a specific time. You missed the

deadline on three of them and you failed to provide all the

information I requested on two of the projects, forcing me

to send you back with more instructions to complete the task

fully.’’

Negative Attitude:

‘‘In the staff meeting this morning I noticed that you reacted

to the new documentation requirements by sighing and roll-

ing your eyes. Then you looked at the person next to you

with an expression on your face that seemed to be saying,

‘Can you believe what management came up with this time?’

On the way out of the meeting, I overheard you complaining

to your coworkers that this was ‘another example of manage-

ment creating needless paperwork.’ ’’

Not a Team Player:

‘‘On several occasions recently I have called for volunteers

to work on different projects. You never once raised your

hand to take on the extra work that has to get done. In addi-

tion, several people have told me that whenever they ask you

for extra help, you sigh and look irritated. You help out but