To have a high-performance entrepreneurial team or organization, you must have people who live the company’s values (right people) in positions where they have the skills to be high performers (right seats). You must also lead, manage and hold accountable each of your team members. An outstanding tool for this is quarterly coaching conversations.
Quarterly coaching conversations.
Conduct quarterly conversations in a relaxed manner. Depending on how well you know the person, begin with something such as: “How are you in general?” Then, focus on the three things an entrepreneur should coach employees on – three performance areas: (1) living the company’s values, (2) executing on the person’s major roles and (3) discussing how well they met their quarterly priorities and setting a new set of quarterly priorities.
- Living the values.The values your employees live create your business culture. Many companies have a defined set of values, but most employees can’t tell you what they are — and they certainly aren’t regularly coached and evaluated on them. If they were, they’d either live them really well, or leave the company because they don’t fit the culture. One company owner I coach has a great culture that she has developed for years. A relatively new employee once told her: “You’d really have to be a jerk to be a jerk here!” The employee then resigned, because she openly admitted she likes to talk about and complain about other employees— not a culture fit. The Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS®) has brilliant, simple tools to evaluate and coach team members on living the values, executing their major roles and completing their 90-day priorities: Imagine the positive impact that evaluating and coaching employees quarterly on these three areas would have!
2. Major roles. Every seat in the accountability chart is defined with 3–7 major roles. During quarterly coaching, evaluate with your team member how well they carry out these roles. Acknowledge everything they’re doing well. If they’re struggling or off track, identify and quickly correct issues together.
3. Quarterly priorities (rocks). Define the quarter’s 3–7 most important priorities (or rocks, a term which EOS uses from Stephen Covey). Rocks are defined each quarter at the leadership team level (for the company) and in each team in the company and for each Individual. This alignment provides laser focus organization wide on accomplishing the vision … quarter by quarter.
Coaching is an opportunity to support employees in their professional growth. When you coach, be courageous — give pure, honest, direct and helpful feedback that helps your team member know what they’re doing well and how to improve where necessary.
When everyone lives the values, performs their major roles and executes on their rocks, you’ll have a high-performance team or organization that is disciplined, focused and accountable.
