Feedback & Coaching: Putting the Pieces Together

Feedback is apart of every organization and a very important part of leadership and employee development. Daniel Pink's book Drive explains, "We inhabit a landscape of lush feedback in most realms of our life. We play a video game and we get a score. We press a button on the ATM and we get our balance. We send a text and we get a sound that confirms the message has been sent. [But] when we step through the office door we enter a feedback desert." So why do organizations only give feedback once a month, once a quarter, and sometimes only once a year?

Organizations succeed more based on habits than strategic decisions. Research shows that 40-45% of our day is a habit, which means about half of every day we make decisions subconsciously. To change a habit there has to be constant feedback that leads to small incremental changes over time. It takes on average 66 days to change/develop a complex habit (21 days for a simple habit). Developing the needed habits to achieve the results desired is the foundation of coaching.

There are many forms of coaching:
Sports Coach, Life Coach, Voice Coach, Fitness Coach, Health & Wellness Coach

Coaching is an essential feedback tool for growing leaders and for leaders to help others succeed. But why has this not translated to all organizations?

Peer Coach, Leadership Coach, and Business Coach should be apart of every organization's culture.

No matter what type of coach, there are a few basic fundamentals of coaching:

Collaboration - Both parties have to identify the goal and come up with a plan together. Coming up with a plan together from the input of both parties gains the necessary buy-in to make the plan successful.

Commitment – A commitment must be made by both parties to the plan and the behaviors that need to be exhibited to make the plan successful.

Consistency - The behaviors from the plan have to be put into action every day until they become a habit. The coach has to ensure that they are coaching daily to drive the behavior so the habit is formed.

Follow-Up – Sitting down regularly to discuss the progress is an essential part of coaching. Coaches must highlight the progress that is being made. People tend to focus on how far they have to go, instead of how far they have come. This type of thinking is why people frequently give up.

Accountability- Everyone must be held accountable. The coach for consistently coaching and the individual for consistently exhibiting the behaviors needed to get reach the goal.

At the end of each day ask, "Are you better today, than you were yesterday?" This creates open dialogue to start the feedback conversation.

Following these fundamentals to coaching will allow the individual or team to develop the knowledge, behaviors, and habits needed to grow and succeed. Coaching isn’t something that you can do only once a year, once a quarter, once a month or even once a week, feedback and coaching has to be apart of the daily culture!

What are some ways you can integrate coaching and feedback into your organization's daily culture?

Photo by Killarney