Strive for True Delegating of Responsibilities
Delegating important responsibilities is a big part of what coaches do — it's an important responsibility, as it were. But these important responsibilities are important responsibilities, not trivial tasks. True delegating entails showing confidence in your employees' special talents and abilities to do big things. It means giving them important jobs and increasing their overall roles in the larger picture. By doing this, you are entrusting your employees to perform not only for you, but for their teammates as well, not to mention the company's bottom line.
Real delegating is the ultimate office yawn buster. You can set a fire under your wilting employees by plying them with significant job responsibilities. You can show confidence in your most lethargic employees by putting them in roles that matter, not only to them but to other people as well. So, sit down with your dispirited team members and pull out your finely honed listening skills — yet again. Initiate dialogues with probing, open-ended questions that get to the heart of exactly why your employees are bored and not performing as in the past.
It's important to keep in mind that “bored with the job” is not a one-size-fits-all description with a one-size-fits-all solution. One employee's lackluster performance and discontent with the job may be quite different in nature from another's. And you should fully grasp these differences. It boils down to individual personalities and self-motivation.
Opinion polls suggest that more than 50 percent of workers name a “sense of accomplishment” as the chief ingredient they desire in a job, over and above even compensation. Coaching and mentoring aim to furnish employees with freedom, challenges, and opportunity for advancement, affording them that coveted sense of accomplishment.
You might assume, with all of the talk about coaching and mentoring as the people-approach to managing, that coaches, by nature, have to be sentimental softies who bow to their employees' every wish. This is not the case. The art of coaching and mentoring is not about being nice, per se. It's certainly not about being nasty. Rather, it's about getting the best results possible and understanding how best to get them.
Major Frank Burns of the TV classic M*A*S*H once eloquently uttered how “it's nice to be nice to the nice.” And it is. But “niceness” is not a business mantra. Business decisions are rooted in the dollars and cents reality of what's best for the company. So, if your employees are out of bounds with their requests, you've got to set them straight and offer objective feedback on their performances, overall abilities, and immediate futures in the company. Above all else, you must strive to be fair, not necessarily nice. Hopefully, you can be both fair and nice.
