A Case for Peer Coaching: “Like me. Dislike me. Just don’t ignore me”.
Molly Sargent
Founder & CEO ?? We coach Sales Leaders & Teams in trust-based relationships HOW TO close more business, expand it & keep it.
“Like me. Dislike me. Just don’t ignore me.” This is a helluva way to start a discussion about employee engagement and driving effective behavior change. Still, this raw sentiment may reflect how many of your people feel about being part of your work community. It comes from a famous study on what contributes to employee satisfaction and productivity, and helps make a case for why Sales Leaders and their Learning Partners in Learning & Development may want to cultivate Peer Coaching as part of their post-training sustainment strategy.
The study, famously known as the Hawthorne Effect, showed (among other things) that when employees were given attention (even non-optimal attention), they tended to feel more valued, and in turn, they tended to be more productive. Simply put for you and me: our people flourish and are more productive when someone pays attention to them. It doesn’t even need to be “the best” attention, or from the most senior or seasoned people. What many people crave at work is community, connection and shared experiences. This is true for how people learn… including how they learn after they leave the classroom.
As you know, coaching by Leaders isn’t enough. With flatter organizations and wider spans in management reporting structures, Leaders struggle to spend quality, focused Coaching Time with their people. And when Leaders DO spend time with their people, understandably the discussions often focus more on results, and less on the behavioral disciplines and decisions that brought about those results.
This Behavioral Coaching Deficit is most notably problematic after an employee returns from a skills training program. The days and weeks immediately following a training constitute the most critical time for cementing behavior change among course participants. But while managers can’t be everywhere at once, perhaps colleagues can.
And everyone wins: not only do employees get the attention they need to focus and practice new skills, but Sales Leaders and Learning Leaders get a significantly greater ROI from their training investment!
Stay tuned for the next post, in which we’ll cover a few Key Principles of Successful Peer-Coaching.
Excellent article!? During my years in the television news business, it often seemed that the people elevated to the executive producer position for one show or another rarely had any training or experience in how best to bring out the talent of their team, and they were usually too busy to even think about it.? On those rare occasions when more experienced colleagues did take the time to share their knowledge and advice with me, I was always grateful and it definitely made me feel like an appreciated member of the team!? I look forward to reading your next article in this series!
Managing Partner at AUM-IQ specializing in Continuous Process Improvement for continuous AUM growth
6 年Ok, I admit, I like you; you are a pro's pro.
Principal at KC People Solutions; Co-Founder BelKat Solutions, LLC
6 年This is a fantastic way to sustain learning after a formal event! A Leader's support for and fostering of peer coaching allows the "roots" of their leadership to travel and impacts the strength of the team. I feel that (peer) observation, and permission and acceptance to discuss those observations, is an important of peer coaching...after all, we've learned by observing since we were small. Some of my most important lessons were learned observing others...I wish then I would have had the insight and courage to question them on why/how they did some things to better understand and take advantage of their skill/knowledge. Looking forward to the next post!