"Service Monday"

Providing coaching is an integral component of leadership. And receiving coaching is an integral part of every employee's development.

Coaching is one of those ideas so many of us give lip service to. Most of us believe it's a good thing to do if we have time. The thing is, we've got to make the time for coaching and it's the responsibility of the coach and the coachee to make that time happen. Discipline, as with so many other areas of management and leadership, is key here.

How about this scenario? Set each day of the week (or at least several days of the week) as a specific day to focus on development for the staff. Here's an example:

"Service Monday": Since SERVICE is such a major piece of what we should be doing daily, have specific training, feedback, review of service with the team every Monday.

"1:1 Tuesday": Every Tuesday, meet with one or two of your staff and have a 1:1 meeting with them, providing them guidance, giving them uninterrupted time to share with you. This is critical to know what's going on with your team. The goal should be that you meet with every one of your direct reports AT LEAST once a month.

"Staff Meeting Wednesday": You've gotta have, you need to have regular staff meetings. Weekly staff meetings are preferable. You have stuff going on and you and your people need to discuss.

What else for the other days? Well, you don't have to do something like this every day of the week. What about M-W-F?

What's important is that you meet with your team, you provide opportunities for coaching, training, development, and communication. There are surely several ways of constructing these opportunities for your team. How about getting with them to see what they think might work?