Building a Winning Team in Hospitality: The Power of Coaching
Developing a culture of coaching in your workplace can have a positive impact on your organization’s performance and success. Coaching creates an environment that will allow you to attract new talent, retain employees and improve customer experience. Coaching is a process of continual learning and improvement. It is a powerful opportunity to explore ideas, understand emotions, gain new awareness, shift beliefs, build new habits, change behaviors, learn new skills, and achieve personal and professional goals. Here are some tips to get you started on the way to building a winning team through the power of coaching, including four elements to a successful coach approach.
Building a Winning Team in Hospitality: The Power of Coaching
Coaching is…
- A process that enables individuals through a process of self-discovery and self-awareness to build their capabilities and capacity to achieve personal, professional and organizational goals.
- Helping someone get from point A to point B. Where they are today and the goals that they want to achieve.
- Focus on facilitating insight. You’re bringing your employees that you are coaching to their own conclusions, and you are doing this in a very specific way.
- Coaching is an investment in the talent the organization wants to develop and to retain.
Coaching is NOT…
- Therapy. You’re not fixing anyone or delving into their traumatic past.
- Management. Coaching is one tool a manager can use.
- Consulting. The primary focus is not to analyze or see what’s wrong and to make recommendations on how to fix anything.
- Training/teaching. These are tools that managers use. Training and teaching focuses on sharing knowledge and best practices.
- Mentoring. Mentors are seasoned professionals within an organization who show less senior and experienced people the ropes. The best mentors typically coach.
- Progressive discipline. A specific process of working with employees who are not performing well for whatever reason.
Benefits of Cultivating a Coaching Culture
Integrate coaching into the fabric of the organization. Make it part of the hiring process, part of the expectation for the manager and part of the employee performance.
What are the benefits for:
Organization – Higher productivity
- Greater employee engagement
- Increased retention
- Team performance
- Quality of relationships
- Leadership development
Manager – Collaborative approach
- Better employee relationships
- Increased accountability
- Greater creativity
- Rewarding work
- Increased career potential
Employee – Growth of skills
- Better problem solving
- Better decision making
- Improved confidence
- Higher motivation
- Feel respected
- Job satisfaction
The Coach Approach
- Promotes an open, collaborative, supportive and empowering environment where individuals feel valued, understood, and motivated to take ownership of their development
What does it mean for the Manager/Leader to use coaching skills?
- Fosters a culture of continuous learning, accountability, and collaboration within the team
- Empowers individuals to think critically and creatively
Four elements to a successful coach approach
1. Adopt coaching behaviours
- Develop a coaching mindset – A manager using coaching needs to be curious, compassionate, and confident in employees’ motivations and abilities. You need to believe that your employees want to and can reach their performance and development goals.
- Build and foster trust – Create a safe place. Coaching requires a level of vulnerability for everyone involved. Learn about others. Communicate with your employees. Show that you are invested in their success. Be honest and direct and be clear you expect the same from them. Take accountability. Embrace failure. Failure is an opportunity to learn, and you are there to support them.
- Listen actively – Give people your undivided attention and truly listen to what is being said. Use verbal and non-verbal cues to show you are listening. Use positive and open body language. Keep your facial expressions neutral. Create space using silence. You are helping employees come to their own conclusions – silence is needed to have those insights.
- Use powerful open-ended questions to guide the conversation – Questions like, what’s on your mind? What’s the real challenge here for you? What support do you need from me?
2. Recognize coachable moments
- Coach in the moment – You can coach anytime and anywhere.
- What is the depth of coaching required? If you need more time, schedule a meeting, how complex and serious is the conversation? Are you in a suitable environment?
3. Adapt the coaching for each individual situation
- Biases – Be aware of your biases when coaching, some examples are: Cultural background, non-traditional work background, past performance issues, gender or age group, communication styles
4. Action planning
- Action will vary depending on the situation and what the goal is. What is the plan for action? It is important the employee leaves with one or two actions that they can do to move their goal forward.? Have the employee document the action plans in short notes or a quick email.
About the Author
Marielle Gauthier is owner and principal of Redworks Communications and Coaching. As a seasoned accredited business communication specialist with over 20 years of experience, Marielle has extensive experience in strategic communications planning, public relations, media relations and coaching, facilitation, and training. As a certified Results Coach, Marielle works with leaders of small to medium-sized organizations make improvements in individual and team performance, realize better outcomes and achieve business goals faster.