Be an Employee Partnership Coach

Successful kitchen and bath dealers of the future will need to think more in terms of employees as partners in managing their businesses. The term "partner" creates an image of an equal, valuable contributor to the organization. Although each employee won't have legal status as a partner, a successful business will consider each employee a "shareholder."

Understand that if you call employees "shareholders" but never give them the opportunity to share their claim in the operation of the business, then you will have created a negative situation. Employees will see the term as a farce, and they will be reluctant to participate in the process.

However, if you actively involve employees in the decision-making process, and you actively solicit input from them, you'll start to see employees behaving as true shareholders who are concerned about the future of your company.

Your employees truly have the potential to be the very best partners you could imagine. They should already be emotionally vested in the company. With a consistent level of coaching from you and your management team, you can create the potential for great progress. The manner in which you coach will have a direct result on how well your employees buy into the shareholder concept.

Coaching the team
The process of managing people entails following some basic, common sense guidelines. Whenever you plan to work with employees to help them reach higher levels of performance through coaching, you will need to display the following basic characteristics:

1. You must be consistent in everything you do. Your employees must be able to rely on you to behave in similar ways when similar situations occur.

2. You must be totally honest. Don't attempt to be an employee coach because you believe it's the trendy thing to do. You must sincerely believe that this is the best way to help your employees.

3. Demonstrate your passion for your company, your products and your services. You must be totally committed to helping your com-pany, and your employees, become the very best they can be. Your passion and commitment will shine through and have a positive impact on your employees.

4. Develop and support a great training program. You must invest both time and money to train your employees. The employees want to follow up with information, support and clarification that will strengthen the required skills that you have identified through your coaching. Give your employees lots of opportunities to practice the skills, techniques and behaviors you're coaching them to develop.

5. Be flexible, and able to make adjustments as necessary. Recognize that your strategies may need to be modified at a moment's notice due to a client or vendor's request. Don't be too rigid in the way you deliver your coaching or training.
Allowing employees to grow will allow you, the boss, to step back and enjoy a better quality of life. To be a successful manager/coach, you must:

• Be well regarded and respected for what you've accomplished.
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• Work closely with employees.
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• Have skills and abilities desired by others.
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• Understand and articulate the culture, mission and values of the company.
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• Be sincere in relationships with employees.
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• Be trusting and respecting.
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• Empathize with employees.
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• Offer professional and personal support and guidance.
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• Serve as a role model.
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• Allow for individual agendas and respect individual needs.
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• Talk with, not to or at, your employees.
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• Identify and communicate the objectives and goals to be reached and how the efforts will be measured and rewarded.
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• Allow others to grow and develop without fear or concern about their own status.
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• Make available both formal and informal feedback on employee progress.
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• Constantly identify opportunities to improve, and continually plan ways to achieve improvement.