A520.7.3.RB - The Importance of Having a Coach and Mentor

I truly believe that all successful people have had mentors and coaches in their life. Mentors act as navigators throughout your career to help you make sound decisions and stay grounded as a professional. Coaches help you develop technical skills and abilities to be able to excel in the workplace and further your career. In my experience, the good coaches and mentors, no matter what capacity they lead you in, are irreplaceable. I will use my own experiences with coaching and mentoring to shed light on the advantages of having one, or being one.

When I first started in my current role with Target I was new to the company, to the retail and distribution worlds, and operations management. I was given a mentor in the first couple of weeks who had been with the organization for 6 years in an operations management role with experience in every department within the distribution center. My mentor essentially helped me become accustomed to the rules, regulations, and atmosphere of the distribution center and the organization. He was very experienced, so he helped me gain a good perspective on the retail industry and also helped me answer tough questions regarding the leadership style used at Target. He helped me set short term goals in my training period and helped me meet these goals. I currently have a new mentor who is in a more senior position, helping me mainly with development and career progression. He helps me work on my leadership weaknesses and helps me accomplish goals associated with my team and the department, along with personal goals. If it wasn’t for these mentors I would be much worse off in my current role. They did and still do an excellent job helping me develop as a leader, as a person, and helping me become acclimated to my new role.

In the same role I was assigned to be the coach/mentor of a new manager in a different department. My main objective was to help him become acclimated to the organization and help develop his technical and leadership skills. We often met with one another to talk about his new role and to assist him with his technical training. I organized developmental and leadership activities to help him with his team. I also served as a guide in which to help steer him to make good decisions. It was very gratifying to see him develop as a person and a leader while gaining the training and skills necessary to be effective and efficient.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of having a mentor or coach is knowing that they are there to help you, develop you, and train you. They are there for you, not someone else or to fulfill their own agenda. It is essentially free knowledge and advice that is there for the taking, as long as you are receptive to what they have to give. 

A520.6.5.RB - Team Roles

I don’t think that there is a more important role a leader could take in the workplace than a relationship-building one. Strong relationships between team members and between their managers are essential to any team, and not just professional ones, personal ones. As part of my routine while I was still training as a manager in my current role, I spent the entire shift building relationships with my team and getting to know them on a personal level before leading them. These relationships make giving feedback easier, make coaching easier, and they allow me to work with my team, rather than the team working for me. They know what do, how to do it, and when to do it and I allow them the freedom to do their jobs as they choose as long as they are meeting expectations set forth by the company.

In meetings and other forums where decision are being made, I take the role of a facilitator where employees feel valued and comfortable speaking. Everyone is on the same level, and I am there to help them with their concerns, their challenges while developing them and helping them succeed. I actively engage my team, whether it be through recognition or through coaching to improve in an area. They know that when I approach them it could be to either talk casually, speak about upcoming work details, or to coach them and help them improve. I facilitate job tasks by removing obstacles for them so that they can successfully do these tasks, and I give them the information, resources, and training to complete them by our standards.

I strongly encourage team members to work problems between themselves to improve their communication and collaboration skills, along with building a positive team culture. I allow the “captains” of different functions to make decisions for their group and to respond to different challenges they may face. This empowers not only the captains to make effective decisions, but also the team members as they become involved in the decision-making process for being the experts in their functions. I only become involved if I absolutely have to because I want each team to work together, to form and improve relationships with one another, and to be able to solve problems by themselves using their knowledge, skills, and training.

The relationships I have with my team members make it easier to facilitate tasks and empower them to make decisions as a team. I trust them that they will make the right decision, and if not, learn from the bad ones. They trust that I will support their decisions and help them improve and learn if a bad one is made. Relationships create trust, which in turn create a pleasant and strong atmosphere conducive to learning, development, and high performance. They help by making team members feel valued and appreciated for what they contribute to the organization.

A520.5.3.RB - Forrestor's Empowerment

In Forrestor’s article he explains six ways in which organizations and their leaders have managed to give empowerment a bad name, including precipitous empowerment mandates, overreliance on a narrow psychological concept of empowerment, one-size-fits-all empowerment, neglecting the needs of power sharers, a piece-meal approach, and distortions of accountability.

Precipitous empowerment mandates revolve around organizations removing or implementing new stages of responsibility for employees without sufficient time to allow employees to become adjusted. When talking about overreliance on a narrow psychological concept of empowerment, this concept is when organizations attempt to tell employees what they are, what they could be, what they want or need when it comes to their job. This may create a false sense of power and responsibility. The one-size-fits-all approach to empowerment is fairly self-explanatory. It explains the fact that not all employees respond to the same empowerment techniques. Neglecting the needs of power sharers is about organizations trying too hard to empower front-line managers while neglecting the ones in the middle. Middle level managers have more responsibility and have more influence on those below them, so why are they often left out of the plan? Organizations often try piece-meal approaches or cookie-cutter approaches to empowerment and get results opposite the ones that they wanted. Organizations need tailored, creative ways to empower employees because it is something that needs to be taken seriously due to the consequences. Distortions of accountability relates to employees being given greater responsibilities with the same amount of accountability as employees with lesser responsibilities. These employees cannot be protected from the consequences of their actions.

On the other end of the spectrum, the article explains six ways to potentially save organizations from these pitfalls, which include enlarging power, being sure of what you want to do, differentiate among employees, support power sharers, build fitting systems, and focus on results. These somewhat align with the five dimensions mentioned in the text, Developing Management Skills, which can be expanded upon. Self-efficacy deals with a person having the competence and ability to perform a task. Each employee must be trained appropriately and have the ability to do the jobs that are delegated to them. The second dimension, self-determination, relates to employees having a choice in what tasks they do and don’t do. The third dimension, which is personal consequence, is related to the results of the task they take on. Basically, effort produces results and no one will be there to correct mistakes. The fourth dimension, meaning, revolves around employees having tasks that give them a purpose. They are able to produce goals from their jobs and do them successfully because they align with the employee’s standards and ideals. The final dimension, trust, is perhaps the most important as it allows employees to complete tasks because they trust they will be treated fairly and valued as people. 

A520.4.3.RB - Motivation Beyond Money

Andy does a fine job of outlining these motivators that people like me respond to, which are interesting work, recognition, and the expansion of one’s skill set. If the work that someone is doing does not interest them, how can you keep them engaged enough to do it every day and excel at it? It’s nearly impossible, and for me having an interesting job is a rather big motivator. Along with it being interesting comes challenge, excitement, and achievement, all of which allow me to continue to do it day in and day out.

Recognition, which is arguably the most important one, is crucial for me. I consider myself to be an over achiever, and because of that I enjoy being recognized for my efforts, my contributions to the organization. And who doesn’t? Every employee, no matter the level in the organization, wants to know their true value by being recognized. It’s part of the big picture concept where employees want to see their contributions and hear about them from leadership.

The expansion of one’s skill set is also a no-brainer. Organizations need highly trained, intelligent people working for them, and with this comes training programs for different specializations and areas of focus for organizations. Leaders are often selected for promotions within the company, but not without some sort of training and advancement of skills. I enjoy learning new job skills, new trades, and furthering my education, basically anything that makes me better at what I do.

Additionally, I have other motivators, one of them being goal setting, both from my manager and myself. I establish long and short term goals that allow me to accomplish different tasks in my professional life, but I also like it when my manager does the same for me. I enjoy the challenge, and it often results in me discovering a new talent or skill that I possess.

The second motivator is feedback, both positive and negative. Just as much as I enjoy hearing everything that I am doing well at, I also like to hear what areas I could improve on. This makes me a stronger leader and helps me with personal and professional development.

A third motivator is my peers at work. Who I work with has a lot to do with my general demeanor at work. I enjoy working with friends, not co-workers, so building relationships with my peers is essential. I feed off of their positive energy and excitement, as they do me, and bouncing ideas off of them and collaborating is fun, effective, and good for development and relationship building.

A520.3.5.RB - Supportive Communication

Being a supportive communicator has to do with coaching, mentoring, listening, being genuine, personal accountability, and relationships. If a strong relationship is built, a negative conversation can be had without any party ever feeling like it was truly negative. This is where all of these attributes come into play. I plan to use coaching, behavioral observations, and validating statements to improve my supportive communication in my workplace.

Coaching - I regularly coach team members in various areas that may need improvement, but it may be hard for me to make the conversation come out as a positive one, even though it could be negative. Using open-ended questions and listening to that team member is one way of being supportive. I want to recognize those team members that exemplify the goals and attitudes that the organization strives for so that they continue them, and help mentor those team members that don't. This will include allowing the team member to own the behavior and find ways to improve. 

Observing of Behaviors - By observing behaviors I am able to give real-time feedback to team members while focusing on ways to prevent that same behavior from happening. so, observing behaviors could allow myself as leader to help the team member improve them. Removing obstacles is one role of a leader and the team member may need that help from to move forward. 

Validating Statements - The observations an coachings with team members will entail strong one-on-one communication. I will create a comfortable atmosphere for the team member where an exchange of ideas and thoughts is valued. I will listen effectively and make sure I remove any agenda I may have for the conversation. My relationship with the team member has to be strong in order for me to meet these objectives and have successful conversations.

Supportive communication is key for a happy and pleasant workplace. It's what makes employees return to work day after day to perform for the organization and its leaders. Simple things like listening and being genuine will go a long way and create an inviting environment that will spur conversation and make one seem more approachable.

A520.3.1.RB - Decision Making

If I had to use three words to describe my decision-making they would be creative, logical, and flexible. I often use as much creativity as possible when making decisions, especially if another party is involved, like my family or my team at work. This allows some unpredictability in my results from the decision and also creates an exciting work environment by trying out new methods for solving problems. Logic shows up quite often in my decision-making because my job is technical and several job tasks revolve around data from various technical sources. I use my knowledge of the department and the team members to make informed decisions. I can learn from my mistakes and use that experience to make a better decision next time. I also make decisions that are flexible, meaning I can change specific aspects about them without affecting the end result. I do this by creating more than one plan for each decision, like back-up plans.

The three words that describe the opposite of my decision-making are unoriginal, irrational, and rigid. I think it would be very hard for me to make decisions that revolve around these three words, only because my personality plays a major part in my decision-making, and these three words are the complete opposite of who I am as a person and how I act. My family, along with my team at work, is anything but unoriginal so I cannot imagine having to make the same decisions day in and day out. The technical details of my job also prohibit me from making irrational decisions that could have a costly impact on the organization.

Overall, I enjoy making decisions the way I feel the most comfortable with, which is using past experience, knowledge, logic, and creativity. My personality shows through in my decisions and I would not like to detract from that. I have too much at stake to make decisions that are not original, not logical, and do not show a creative spirit. 

A520.2.6.RB - Time Management

Time management has been a strength of mine since joining the military, and I have been able to carry those skills over to my personal life and civilian career. I was always able to arrive to work on time when I was younger because it was my highest priority at the time, and I prioritized tasks while working to ensure I was completing the most important tasks first. Today, I think that prioritization is the biggest factor in my everyday time management. I have determined what tasks and activities are the most important, ensure that each has sufficient amount allocated to them, and use the rest of the time to complete the activities and tasks that aren’t as pressing. However, I am never in the position where I was not able to complete a task because I ran out of time, so I give every task a certain level of importance.

After examining myself and my self-awareness in the first module, I learned that my locus of control was strong. This aligns well with the fact that I have good time management skills because these two coincide. Time management has helped me in other areas of my life, especially with my locus of control. Being able to manage my time and prioritize tasks in my personal and professional life has given me more ownership of my actions. Everyone has activities and tasks that come with deadlines, but being able to meet these deadlines is satisfying and rewarding.

There are a few areas in which I could improve my time management skills, resulting in reduced stress. The first area is spending increased amounts of time on non-priority events, or those with no deadline or consequence for not completing. The biggest culprit is TV, and when I watch too much I have less time to spend on tasks that have a priority. Another area is separating tasks that are related to my personal and professional life. There are times when I spend too much time on work tasks and not enough on personal tasks, and vice versa. I need to find a sustainable balance for both. The last area is doing a better job of prioritizing activities better in my personal life. There are a lot of tasks that have no priority, but should, so there is no consistency with when and how these are completed, even though there should be.

My action plan for improving in these areas includes giving a priority to more tasks in my personal life, creating a balance for activities related to my professional and personal life, and decreasing the amount of time spent on non-priority activities. By putting a priority on tasks at home, this will allow me to meet my other goal of spending less time of non-priority tasks, allowing me to accomplish more of what I need and want to during my time away from work. I will also allocate myself a certain number of hours to spend on work related tasks so that they do not impede my ability to accomplish activities in my personal life.