Whom should you coach?

Every situation in a manager's life presents opportunities for coaching.

Consider these examples:

• Herb is a talented market researcher but spends more of his time at his computer than in meetings with market planners and new product developers. His valuable findings aren't making their way into company plans, and his career is stalled.
• Claudia is a fast learner, works well with others, and understands the company's goals. You'd like to promote her, but her reluctance to confront difficult, argumentative people is holding her back.
• Tim is a smart and hardworking employee, and you'd like to delegate more challenging tasks to him so you can devote more time to planning. But Tim needs to acquire a few more skills to perform the tasks you'd like to delegate to him.
• Shirley, whom you recently promoted to supervisor, isn't delegating enough tasks to her subordinates; she's trying to do everything herself. Moreover, when she leads meetings with her team, the meetings end inconclusively and run overtime.

All of these situations are examples of employees who either have a performance problem or skills gap—both of which are ideal targets for coaching.

As an experienced manager, you have plenty of knowledge to share with each of these employees. But since you have limited time, it's best to invest it in coaching opportunities that will deliver the highest return.  As illustrated in the examples above, these arise when:

• A new subordinate needs direction
• A direct report is almost ready for new responsibilities and needs just a bit more help
• A problem performer can be brought up to an acceptable level of work if he or she receives some guidance

But remember, because coaching is based on mutual agreement, it's not always the best way to handle certain performance problems. You need to intervene more directly when a staff member has clearly violated company policy or organizational values or performance remains flat despite multiple coaching sessions.