Effective Feedback In Coaching

To identify the coaching needs for my team, I needed to consider what the benefits were. I looked at the concerns that one of the team had highlighted when they were informed of their new roles and responsibilities following our organisational review and ascertained that coaching would be beneficial as it is a useful way of developing a person’s skills and abilities by unlocking their potential to maximise their performance. When discussing with the team how we were going to task these new responsibilities, this individual acknowledged that they were unable or did not have confidence or knowledge to undertake these new tasks. I wanted to encourage the individual to discover the answers as the solutions lay with them as the tasks were not
To do this the feedback needs to be meaningful and personalised and this can be done within the coaching session with the coach giving feedback on what is being said and encouraging an ‘in the moment’ style of feedback. Feedback should be given and received and should avoid being judgmental. It should always be positive and constructive and one way of ensuring effective feedback is to use the whole message model which is a way of breaking down feedback into four sections to achieve the best possible results; Observations – statements of what you have seen or heard, describing the situation in concrete facts, specific events and behaviors using ‘I saw, I noticed’. Thoughts – your conclusions based on your observations ‘I wonder if/ my perception is’. Feelings – appropriate expression of the situation ‘I am concerned/ I feel’ and Wants – a clear statement of results, what has changed. Feedback in coaching is very different from performance setting as it should be given in the here and now and should be ongoing and encouraging, the coach should try to get the coachee to reflect back on the feedback and be involved in the process. A good coach should also be open to receiving feedback about the effectiveness of their coaching