Do you want to operate as a coach to improve performance in your team/s and manage change effectively???
Key coaching skills include asking questions, giving feedback, building rapport, and listening (as per the International Coaching Federation).?
Below you can find 10 simple ideas to experiment with:
- Try to listen at least 70% of the time. Focus on listening and asking questions vs telling.?
- Check your presence. Our presence is a gift, not many people give us their full attention these days. Feeling heard or seen is a core human need, the more you can enable this for others the more you can bring them on a journey with you.
- Listen to understand, not to respond. This opens the door for connection and meaningful conversations. Slow down, take a bit of time to understand the other perspectives.
- Identify a common goal at the beginning of a meeting. Without a common goal, you will be going in a different direction from others.?
- Reframe “conflict” as opportunities. Opportunities to drive alignment, to improve the ways of working, to be more diverse and inclusive, to take advantage of the skills and experiences your team members and stakeholders have.??
- Ask more open-ended questions to understand the context/situation in which the conversation takes place. This will help you develop “perspective taking capacity”. The more you can understand what others are navigating, the more you will increase the quality of the relationship with them. Higher quality relationships lead to higher quality conversations and better outcomes over time.
- Scan for values misalignment. What you value may be different from what others value, hindering effective communication.
- Confirm your understanding. Paraphrase and summarize what the other person is saying to ensure understanding.?
- Do not take it personally. When you are in a conversation, what others say may become triggers that can shift your emotional state. Remember that nobody wakes up in the morning to annoy you. We are all doing the best we can with what we have.
- How can I improve today? It's common for leaders to expect others to change. But what can you try to change today?
Which one can you implement today??
