A Smart Coaching Language Drives Results
Unlocking the best coach in every manager doesn’t have to be a climb up Mt. Everest. Just give managers a coaching language. The quality of their coaching conversations rests on their knowing what to say and how to say it.
Our Smart Start Toolkit™
Simple word prompts — we call them Smart Starts — help managers offer guidance more than judgment. Smart Starts make it easy to look ahead, not back.
Here are two Smart Starts:
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How do managers learn the coaching language?
We keep it simple.
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Six POWERformance Principles serve as a framework.
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Excerpts in print serve as springboards for comments from the participants. People easily recognize what’s good and what’s better.
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We show how the Smart Starts resulted in better feedback.
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An 18-page, 4- x 6-inch spiral bound job aid gives them all the Smart Starts at their fingertips. A quick flip-through before a check-in is a great refresher.
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What’s the evidence that Smart Starts make a difference?
In post-training surveys, more than 90% of managers say they find Smart Starts effective in their one-to-ones and in-the-moment coaching conversations.
Clients often ask us to evaluate written coaching comments. We always find a direct correlation between the number of Smart Starts used and the strength of the coaching provided.
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Coaching Language Example and Analysis
If you’d like to delve deeper into our coaching language at work, here’s a check-in conversation with detailed explanations of each comment.