A key component of running a successful business is being able to coach and provide feedback to employees. As a leader or manager, providing proper guidance for employees ensures they can succeed in the workplace and continue to improve. In this article, we will provide you with three tips for coaching and providing feedback for your team.

Avoid Using Accusatory Language
Words such as always, should, never, and you or your are all quick to put an employee on the defensive when providing feedback. It’s important to choose words carefully, because more than just providing feedback or worse, venting frustrations with their performance, we want our employees to be open to evaluating themselves openly and improving.  

Ask Open-Ended Questions
Asking guiding questions tends to lead to more thoughtful and detailed answers. Asking guiding questions allows employees to discover the answers themselves and help them learn and grow the most. The open-ended approach to questioning also encourages more productive coaching conversations to occur in future.

Develop Strong Relationships with Employees
When providing coaching or feedback, your relationship with your employees is incredibly important. If employees don’t understand you and where you’re coming from, they may be unresponsive to your guidance and even be upset by it. It also provides managers with an understanding of employees, their attitude toward work, and their capacity to improve and perform.

Committing to Continuous Improvement 
While providing feedback and coaching is essential for helping employees strive for improvement, it is also important as a leader to try to continuously improve as well. Here at Adonis Partners, we can help managers, leaders, and employees at all levels through Six Sigma training and coaching get better results by utilizing the Lean and Six Sigma toolkit.