Sales Progress (Training Reinforcement Partner Company) and Training magazine surveyed 500-plus managers to discover attributes that make employees perform at their optimal level. Attitude was the top attribute (64 percent), while willingness to invest time in their own learning came in second at 43 percent.
Managers also were asked the two most important things a manager must have to coach and develop their employees successfully. The ability to understand what motivates each employee was the top result (45 percent), followed by the ability to ask good open-ended questions (41 percent).
So the question for leaders becomes: “How do we learn more about our employees, so we can coach them as individuals?”
One solution is a Coaching Investment Assessment (CIA), which we designed to help trainers, managers, and coaches strengthen their teams’ performance. The CIA provides a perspective of who the employee is, what his or her advantages are, and what areas will require coaching. The goal is to create a deeper understanding of the employee, as well as learn specific approaches that will successfully provide leaders a roadmap to coach the employee to greater performance.
Tim Hagen is president and chief coaching officer at Sales Progress, LLC (www.salesprogress.com)
