In my role as a coach, in my company and in the service I provide to my clients, I recognize that my job is to help others reach their highest potential. It’s your job too if you are in a position of leadership in your organization.
One of the ways you can coach people to higher levels of performance is to teach them what success looks like, sounds like and feels like.
Using examples is a great way to teach and coach and the good thing is, you have examples all around you in the form of others who have overcome bad habits, limiting ways of thinking and career sabotaging behavior.
Hearing how others have become successful provides a template for employees. It can be very powerful for someone who is struggling to understand what you and the organization expect of them.
It is even more meaningful if the stories you share come from the industry in which you are operating.
The perfect time to share these stories is during the performance evaluation process.
Quite often we, as managers, find ourselves pointing out what an employee has to do to improve then we fail when it comes to suggesting the options available to the employee to achieve their goals, in time for the next review. Offering the stories of how others improved may spark the motivation and ideas an employee needs to take their performance to the next level.
Are there titans in your industry who started out on shaky ground when they were beginning their careers? Share their story!
Are there superstars who worked their way into the C-Suite of the company who started out as temporary help? Share their story! You have examples all around you that take the form of the success stories of others. Use these to teach those on your team how to grow.