Coaching, Mentoring and Managing: A Coach Guidebook

Not surprisingly, therefore, assessing the performance levels

of your team members starts with developing firsthand

information about each person on the team.

To cover all the bases, let’s assume you are totally new to your

team. You have just signed on and are ready to meet and evaluate

team members. Let’s further assume that you are already familiar

with the overall team function and individual job descriptions that

contribute to team success. How do you become familiar with

each team member and how well she is doing the job at hand?

Undoubtedly you will have talked with your supervisors (if

any) about job personnel and job challenges as they perceive them.

But the task of evaluating an employee’s performance does not

start with other people. It starts with the team member. Why?

Because your own firsthand impressions and opinions are key to

performance objectivity. The time will come when the thoughts of

others can and should be weighed, but not before you have

firsthand impressions of the personalities, problems and potentials

that create your unique team mix.

The Face-to-Face Phase

Talk to your employee. Find a time when you are both free to

spend at least 30 minutes to an hour in uninterrupted, casual

conversation, and schedule a comfortable “get to know each

other” chat. The goals of your time together will be threefold.

Understand:

1. What motivates your employee.


2. What problems and pluses (professional and personal) she
   perceives about performing daily tasks.


3. What goals she has for career growth and development.
   While insights into each of these areas could surface during
   random, undirected conversation, many managers find that asking
   nine specific questions usually achieves the above three goals.
   Naturally, you will want to modify these questions to better suit
   your own situation, but the nine questions are as follows:


4. What do you like best about your job?


5. What do you like least?

Coaching, Mentoring and Managing

2

The better you

know your people,

the better you can

make the right

game-winning

decisions.

If you are a

manager, even of

insignificant things,

you’ll never be an

insignificant

manager.