Coaching Conversations Dos and Don'ts Video

[Presenter] Coaching conversations are a great way of connecting with your team members, working through challenges, and helping them to develop their careers. They might be specific – where you work through a particular challenge together. Or broad, for example, looking at what someone wants to achieve in their career and how they might go about it.

Either way, when you start a coaching conversation, it can be helpful to keep in mind some key dos and don'ts.

First, do have a clear goal in mind. Coaching conversations are all about stimulating growth, reflection and change, but they also need to be focused. With that in mind, ask your coachee what they want to cover. It could just be about an immediate problem they want to solve today, or it could be more of a long-term challenge they want to explore.

It's okay to make suggestions as you go along, but always let your coachee take the lead and agree, together, what you want to discuss in the session.

You want to keep the conversation flowing naturally, so don't prepare a set list of questions. Avoid guiding the conversation in any way. Instead, allow your coachee to take the lead and delve deeper at key points to help them discover more.

Your main role is to act as a prompt. So do use open questions like, "Can you tell me more?" "What's standing in your way?" and "What's important to you?" These will help your coachee to really focus in on the challenges they're facing.

Don't be tempted to interrupt your coachee either and avoid filling silences, even if they do feel awkward. Silence can actually be a very valuable tool. Think of it as deep thinking time. It can also give you some space to gauge your coachee's reactions and check their body language. For example, are they putting on a brave face or uncomfortable in any way?

Do use active listening   . Listen fully to what your coachee is saying, without interruption, and avoid forming any reply until your coachee has finished speaking. Also, paraphrase the main points your coachee has mentioned every so often to check your understanding, and ask them to explain things further if anything seems confusing.

Summarize what's been said to make sure you've nailed down the main issues. This will create a firm foundation from which your coachee can start working toward their own solution.

Finally, don't end the conversation without agreed actions. Remember, coaching conversations are all about growing and adapting, so at the end of the conversation, ask your coachee what they think their next steps could be and, if possible, include some timescales to keep things moving in a positive direction.

To discover more coaching conversation dos and don'ts, read the article    that accompanies this video.