With productivity and staff morale high on the new year agenda, Helen Ebdon from Affirming Professional Coaching offers marketers simple ways to achieve both.

We can’t reach our fullest potential alone. Athletes and performers understand this, employing a coach to help them set goals, identify strengths, overcome challenges, stay motivated and perform at their peak. Here, highly respected professional coach Helen Ebdon talks about the importance of coaching your business to success and shares 10 tips to achieving happier, healthier staff and bottom lines.

1. Plan to succeed - The first step in responsible management is planning a vision for the future. Would you travel from Melbourne to Brisbane without a map? To avoid distraction and to stay focused, a road map of where you want to be and how you’ll get there is crucial for yourself and your team.

2. Take time - If you’re feeling pressure to spend quality time with your team, consider the following. Spending just 10 minutes fully focused on a team member, and not being distracted is one of the most valuable things you can do to build rapport and trust. Doing this whenever the opportunity arises will benefit both yourself and your team members, and bring you huge rewards.

3. Celebrate your wins - Too often, teams forget to celebrate their big wins. Keep some gift cards, vouchers or movie tickets on hand to instantly acknowledge individual efforts. And properly celebrate team wins together. Organising a silver service morning tea (complete with wait staff of course) or a casual Friday afternoon bbq could be an unexpected reward for a long and productive week. Being too busy is not an excuse – recognising your staff’s efforts will inspire them to want to achieve more for you and your company.

4. Staff, not robots - If one of your team is having a stressful day, suggest they take some personal time – an extra hour for lunch, or perhaps the afternoon off. Doing this will let them know that you appreciate what they may be going through. Treating them as human beings, and understanding they have challenges outside of work will go a long way in cementing a solid relationship.

5. Assertive Communication - Involves clearly expressing what you think, how you feel and what you want, without demanding that you must have things your way. The basic underlying assumption is ‘we both matter – lets try to work this out’.

Good communication skills can help you to avoid conflict and to solve problems. If you know that you are not a good communicator and you are responsible for managing a group of people, then consider up skilling. Good communication skills can be learnt.

6. Let others speak - Humans have a psychological need to be heard, or, frustration and anger will soon develop. Arguments happen when both parties talk and no-one listens.

Defuse a conflict early by allowing the other person to discuss an issue without interruption. Say something like, “I know you need some kind of support from me, so can I help you brainstorm solutions? Or just be a neutral backboard, so you can bounce ideas off me? I’m here for you 100 percent.”

7. Be inspiring - If you’re feeling pressure from above to follow instructions you believe to be unnecessary, irrelevant or even a waste of time, don’t ask your team to follow through. After all, if you don’t want to do it, don’t expect them to. It’s a manager’s responsibility to inspire their team, so if you’re not inspired, communicate with those above and resolve your concerns first.

8. Focus on the problem - When giving constructive criticism, make sure you stay focused on addressing the problem, rather than assigning blame or allowing personality issues to influence you. Personal attacks can lead to deep-seated hostility, poor morale or displays of passive resistance. So follow the golden rule of attacking the problem, while being gentle on the person. Cooperating on solving an issue together will enhance both your interests.

9. Personal goals first - In his book, ‘Would you like attitude with that?’, Justin Herald wrote: “As employers, we have to understand what our employees are motivated by. I don’t mean money; I mean ambition, drive and the desire to achieve their own goals.

As the former Creative Head for marketing and advertising agency Polkadot, Helen understands first-hand the challenges of keeping staff motivated and inspired. Now, as a business coach her advice is simple: “I believe there’s nothing more rewarding than assisting others towards their goals” she says. “If the individual’s life is on track, they feel happier and more effective in their day – now just imagine that while you are helping them achieve their goals, they in turn, are contributing to yours – through their renewed enthusiasm, positive energy and improved productivity and that’s got to be a win for everybody!”.

10. Put your oxygen mask on first - You can’t first help others if you need help yourself. None of the tips above will work for you if you’re suffering from stress, or feeling frustrated, unhappy or ineffective. Working with an executive coach to help you sort through the issues you’re facing and brainstorm workable solutions will help. Unless you’re working at optimum potential, how do you expect others to?

FREE consultation with Helen Ebdon
These are just a few techniques business managers can use to improve staff morale, increase individual performance and retain valuable team members.

Now why not take control of your own challenges with a personal evaluation?

Until December 2010, Affirming Professional Coaching are offering Melbourne companies a free professional coaching consultation. Learn how to break routine to produce positive change in your company‘s business behaviour.

For a free evaluation, plus your copy of Helen’s article ‘The Benefits of Business Coaching’,
email: helen@affirming.com.au and type: FREE EVALUATION in the subject title.