Coaching Secrets to Maximize Time & Move Your Employees Forward
By: Etienne R. LeGrand, CEO, Vivify Performance
Findings by Gallup Research and other entities are proving that employee engagement is correlated to learning, performance and retention. People who strongly agree that they “get to do what they do best everyday” are more engaged and productive.
Imagine that by reinforcing teachers’ strengths for example, the 22% teacher turnover rate could be cut in half if not eliminated. Classroom observations offer an opportunity to initiate conversations about planning or interpersonal strengths for example, as does time working with teachers on school projects. You don’t have to wait for formal sit downs that may only occur once a year.
School districts could not only save money but likely increase student engagement as teachers are developed to be even better at what they’re good at. This could be significant since high levels of engagement in both employees and kids is a necessary ingredient for learning and performance.
Public education is too tightly scheduled—often there’s too little time for the coaching conversations that allow teachers and educational leaders to maximize available time. Let’s explore some ways to get that coaching conversation going and get results faster:
1. Define Strengths. Okay you’re thinking how exactly do you define someone’s strengths? You can’t define them if you aren’t looking for them, so start there. Begin conversations with your teammates asking them what they believe they are good at and use those conversation as a basis for evaluating whether employees are using their strengths in what they do every day. Giving a name to their strengths helps to reinforce that talent and it can be utilized when time is tight to refocus teammates when they find themselves in stressful circumstances.
Leaders and managers are stuck running school districts and schools respectively with toxic, dysfunctional employees who negatively impact learning and leave even less time for the coaching they need to learn and grow. In the process, parents and the community disengage, and the school and district brand suffer. Disengaged employees either stay and do a poor job. (something’s missing here) Either of their decisions can contribute to or discourage a student’s disengagement and parents’ belief in their teachers.
What I’m describing is a learning-draining cultural problem that has more to do with perspective than pace. And it can be fixed.
2. Build Employee Strengths. Instead of fixing weaknesses, try building on your employees’ strengths. Coaching to reinforce employees’ strengths signals that you care, and this can have a powerful emotional effect that shows up in higher employee productivity and engagement levels. The business of promoting and enabling learning is highly dependent upon deep emotional ties between the people who work and learn together.
When the clock is ticking, and every second represents learning, your teachers and staff make all the difference. They have more control than you think over what type of experience students and parents will have in your school and district. Coaching employees to hone and use their talents and strengths in order to establish a culture that encourages high levels of engagement, is a good investment of principals and other managers’ time—when time is not on their side.