How to Get the Best Out of Your Team

You want your team to work well together. But when you spot weaknesses, it can become frustrating.

Positive interaction with people is known to improve performance. The more encouraging you are, the better their confidence and abilities become, developing people who think and perform as individuals and work productively in a team.

Luckily, weaknesses can be remedied through coaching and mentoring. But what’s the difference? Take a moment to consider the differences…

• Mentoring is task driven, a ‘show and tell’ approach, ideal for new recruits or when project deadlines loom.

• Coaching is asking questions, helping the individual find the solutions themselves. This process develops new neural pathways for improved memory and performance.

Discovering the Difference

In 2015, after successfully ending my Judo Paralympic career, I collaborated with a coach and good friend on a project for the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust.

At the time, I was delivering workshops and speaking at schools and in businesses. Schools were 80% of my client work and businesses only 20%. I needed to swap those figures around but wasn’t sure how.

My friend, Theo, asked if I’d considered coaching. I replied that I was coaching children and adults at my local judo club.

He said: “That’s not coaching, that’s mentoring. You’re sharing your experiences and knowledge, showing people what they should be doing. In business and personal coaching, a coach should never tell someone what to do unless asked. Coaches should stay impartial.”

Theo explained that coaches are trained to question carefully without divulging their opinions, experiences, or working techniques. This process allows you to discover your own solutions, which maintains your motivation to dig in when things get tough. Or set and achieve your own goals using strategies that you know deep down. Your answers are found through skilled questioning.

Knowing When to Use Coaching or Mentoring

Let’s assume you have a team of 10 people. Each person has a different level of responsibility and experience. They have different personalities, abilities, strengths and weaknesses, and need differing managerial approaches.

One management style does not fit all!

Your job is to figure out how to get the best out of each person. That’s why learning the art of dealing with people enables you and your team to become top achievers.

• Coaching scenario: A team member has been with you a year. There’s a task they struggle with. You’ve shown them how to do it five times. When they approach you again saying that they can’t remember what to do, you sigh in frustration.

On previous occasions, you’ve gone straight into ‘show and tell’ mode, demonstrating each stage. But you’ve done that five times!

When people are shown what to do, the process is less likely to be remembered; they forget what to do first. This is where coaching comes into play.

This time, take a coaching stance, not a mentoring one. Ask them: “Where do you think you should start? What’s the first thing to do?”

Go quiet. Let them think.

When someone’s allowed time to consider the problem, the answer is usually found. As they remember, a stream of events occurs.

The neural pathways – memory – of the task were created when you first told them what to do. So, when you ask them to think about what they should do, their thought process links the neural pathways up, helping them to remember.

They’re unlikely to ask you again because they worked it out themselves. All because you asked an open, coaching question that made them think.

• Mentoring scenario 1: A mentor is often an integral part of the induction process for your new starter.

Mentoring is also useful for sharing the company’s culture and values, introducing the team, and learning about projects. And using the ‘show and tell’ approach works well for new tech, software and systems.

Progressing to coaching should follow on fairly quickly, helping them to close those neural pathways and get used to thinking for themselves.

This is how we create habits. People need to work on their own sixty-six times in a row to create that habit and do tasks with ease.

If we continually show and tell, neural pathways don’t fully form because you’re treading the path for them, not asking them to walk it themselves.

• Mentoring scenario 2: An urgent task has to be done to a very high standard. The person has either never done that task before, or there’s an element that they’re weak on. Providing step-by-step guidance ensures that in future, after a bit of coaching, they will deliver a project on time and to the right standard.

Make Space to Fail

Coaching is bringing out skills that are already there. Allow them time. Make it safe to fail at first. But when there are deadlines, there’s less space to fail. That’s the time to mentor, not coach.