You'll be able to coach your employees to do their best if you use the skills, strategies, and smarts of lawyers. Here are 4 great tips that will help you give constructive feedback in a way that will encourage good and productive work...
- Show the employee proof of how well they did their job. In court, prosecutors have to give the defence all of the evidence they have. Supervisors need to do the same thing as employees if they want to be fair. Tony's district manager would often send him upsetting memos about how poorly he did on sales calls. "Last month, you didn't talk to a customer about the Five Points for Sales Excellence. This can't happen." Tony never got a monitoring sheet that explained the differences or a tape of a recorded call. He didn't even get a chance to defend himself because the manager was too afraid to do anything but send a cold, blunt memo.
It's dangerous for Tony's district manager to give feedback the way he does. It's not making Tony want to get better, for sure.
Also, Tony can't defend his performance because the manager hasn't given him any proof of the calls. He hasn't given him a score sheet, a recording of the call, a date or time, or even a specific statement about how Tony wasn't doing his job.
When keeping an eye on employees and coaching them, you should ALWAYS give them the proof of the call. This proof could be a recorded call, a score sheet from a Mystery Shopper, detailed notes from the customer's account, or something else.
2. Get ready ahead of time for employee performance meetings. No lawyer would do a direct examination or a cross examination without planning their questions thoroughly and carefully ahead of time. Before I have a meeting with an employee about poor performance, I always make a loose script, but I never read from it. Writing the conversation down helps me remember it and lets me worry less about covering all the bases and more about my employee.
3. Ask open-ended questions. If you ask a juror if they support the death penalty, they will say yes or no. If you ask her how she feels about the death penalty, you can find out more about her thoughts. If you ask your employee if she thought the phone call in question was good, she will either say yes or no, but if you ask her how she thought the call went, she will be able to elaborate. "If you could do this call over again, would you?" is one of my favourite open-ended coaching questions. "Tell me who that was who called." "Is there anything else I should know about this call/customer that I didn't ask?"
Don't let them use the "Twinkie Defense" The "Twinkie Defense" is a way for defendants to explain their side of the story in court. This theory tries to get the jury off track by saying that the client's bad behaviour was caused by something else. For example, he ate too many Twinkies and was high on sugar when he killed, robbed, raped, or molested, so he is not responsible for what he did. You may have heard your employees use the Twinkie Defense: "I was late because traffic was unusually bad, and when I got here, the elevator was broken, so I can't be blamed for being late." Decide that employees will be held responsible for what they do, and don't let them use the "Twinkie Defense" to avoid responsibility. When someone uses the Twinkie Defense, you say, "This is about personal responsibility, not making excuses."
If you use these tried-and-true methods, you'll be able to coach employees like a pro.
