Do you know how to mentor employees? What is inquisitive coaching?
Claire Hughes Johnson recognizes that management’s work doesn’t end with the formation of a thriving team. On the contrary, she holds that managers should continue to develop the skills of their employees through active instruction.
Let’s discuss Hughes Johnson’s informal approach to mentoring employees.
Approach #1: Inquisitive Coaching
Hughes Johnson relates that one approach that has helped her learn how to mentor employees is hypothesis-based coaching—which we’ll call inquisitive coaching—in which you informally share your observations of your employees to guide them to better performance. Inquisitive coaching has three steps: First, observe your employees carefully; second, identify any persistent shortcomings; and third, share these findings tactfully with your employees.
Step #1: Observe Your Employees
Before you attempt to provide any feedback, Hughes Johnson advises you to carefully observe your employees’ performance in various situations. She explains that, because different strengths and weaknesses will emerge in different circumstances, waiting until you’ve seen your employees across these circumstances can provide you with a fuller picture of their tendencies.
Step #2: Identify Shortcomings
Hughes Johnson writes that after enough time spent in observation, you’ll be able to identify consistent shortcomings that afflict individual team members, as well as certain strengths. For example, you might find that one of your team members excels whenever they work on projects without strict deadlines but tends to become inefficient whenever you impose a deadline. Further, Hughes Johnson explains that the longer you look for patterns among your team members, the more effective you’ll become at identifying them.
Step #3: Share Your Thoughts
After you’ve identified possible shortcomings that hinder your employees, Hughes Johnson recommends that you share your observations with them so they can continue to grow. However, she clarifies that you must be tactful to do so: You shouldn’t frame your observations as a judgment about them as a person, but rather about their behavior and its effect on their performance. For instance, rather than telling someone “I’ve noticed that you consistently underperform when you’re under time pressure,” try saying, “I’ve noticed that time pressure can make it difficult for you to finish projects on time.” By focusing on an external circumstance rather than an internal failing, you remove any semblance of blame from your observation.
Additionally, Hughes Johnson advises you to work together with your team members to investigate problems, rather than telling them what to do. She explains that when you order someone on your team to address a personal shortcoming, they’re often put on the defensive and become reluctant to help. By contrast, when you position yourself as a mutual investigator of the problem, you become a collaborator, making your team members more receptive to your thoughts and suggestions. For example, instead of simply telling a team member who struggles with time pressure to implement a daily schedule, you could instead ask, “What measures do you think you should implement to address the time pressure?”
Approach #2: Formal Reviews
While Hughes Johnson’s intuitive approach to coaching is an informal process that occurs throughout the year, she also points out that managers should implement formal reviews that occur on a consistent basis. Such reviews have three parts: gathering feedback from various sources, adjusting that feedback to account for irregularities, and determining any changes to compensation.
Part #1: Gather Feedback
First, Hughes Johnson writes that you should collect feedback about your employees from three sources: the employees themselves, their co-workers, and yourself.
To begin, ask each reviewee to submit a brief self-assessment that summarizes their accomplishments, highlights their strengths, and discusses one potential area of improvement. Because your employees are often most aware of their own work, their reports could provide insights that you’ve missed.
Next, choose a handful of each reviewee’s co-workers who are especially familiar with the reviewee’s work to give feedback on their performance. Whereas the reviewee might be motivated by self-interest, their co-workers should be able to give more candid assessments.
Finally, after you’ve taken each reviewee’s self-assessment and peer assessments into consideration, write down your own feedback report, discussing the reviewee’s accomplishments, strengths, and weaknesses. In particular, Hughes Johnson suggests rating employees on a concrete five-point scale, from “does not meet expectations” to “greatly exceeds expectations,” which will inform your later decision on whether to promote.
Part #2: Adjust Feedback
Hughes Johnson recognizes that biases and other suboptimal circumstances can influence performance reviews. For example, you might find that women consistently receive worse evaluations than men, or that one manager consistently rates employees lower than other managers. For this reason, you should use data analysis to track performance ratings from different managers and across different demographic groups.
She points out that by analyzing performance ratings, you can identify any abnormalities in the review process and dig deeper into them. For instance, if you notice that one manager provides significantly higher ratings than other managers, you could carefully re-evaluate the employees to see whether they’re actually performing better than those on other teams, or whether the manager is being too generous.
Part #3: Determine Changes to Compensation
Finally, after you’ve gathered and adjusted your feedback, it’s time to rely on your compensation philosophy to determine whether to give your employee a raise. Your compensation philosophy, Hughes Johnson explains, is your guiding framework for determining how much compensation any given employee should receive. And although she doesn’t offer concrete advice for establishing a compensation philosophy, she suggests that incorporating some component of merit—such that higher performance is met with higher compensation—is a prudent way to continue to motivate your employees.
