Using the skills, strategies, and smarts of lawyers, youll be able to more effectively coach your employees to optimal performance. Here are 4 great tips to help you give constructive feedback in such a way that you motivate positive and productive performance...

1. Give evidence of performance to employee.
In litigation, prosecutors are required to turn all
of their evidence over to the defense. In order to be
fair to employees, supervisors need to do the same
thing. Tony frequently received disturbing memos from
his district manager about his poor performance on
sales calls. "You failed to cover the Five Points for Sales
Excellence with a customer last month. This is
unacceptable." Tony never received a monitoring sheet
spelling out the discrepancies, never heard a tape of a
recorded call, and he didn't even have the opportunity
to defend himself because the cowardly manager simply
shot her message off in a cold blunt memo.

Giving feedback the way Tony's district manager does
is dangerous. It certainly isn't motivating Tony to
improve.

Moreover, because the manager has provided no proof
of the calls - no score sheet, no recording of the call,
no date or time, and not even one specific statement
about Tony's alleged ineffectiveness - Tony can't even
defend his performance.

When monitoring and coaching employees, ALWAYS
turn over the evidence of the call to them. This
evidence may include a recorded call, Mystery Shopper
score sheet, detailed notes from customer's account,
etc.

2. Prepare for employee performance meetings in
advance. No attorney would conduct a direct
examination or cross examination without thoroughly
and carefully pre planning their questions. I always
prepare a loose script prior to meeting with employees
about problem performance, even though I don't
actually read from my script. Writing the discussion out
reinforces it in my mind and allows me to be less
concerned with covering all the basis and more
concerned with my employee.

3. Ask open-ended questions. Asking a juror
if they are for the death penalty yields a yes or no
answer, but asking her how she feels about the death
penalty gives the attorney the opportunity to learn
more. Just the same, asking your employee if she
thought the phone call in question was good will yield a
yes or no answer, but asking her how she thought the
call went gives her the opportunity to expound. My
favorite open-ended coaching questions include: "If
you could do this call over again, would you?" "Tell me
about that caller." "Is there anything else about this
call/customer that I haven't asked, but need to know?"

4. Don't allow the "Twinkie Defense." In
court, defendants may stand behind a theory of the
case called the "Twinkie Defense." This theory tries to
throw the jury off the trail by blaming the client's bad
actions on something else - he ate too many Twinkies,
for instance, and was on a sugar high when he
killed/robbed/raped/molested and therefore is not
responsible for his actions. You may have encountered
the Twinkie Defense with your employees: "I was late
because traffic was unusually heavy and then when I
got here the elevator was broken, therefore my
tardiness is not my fault." Decide that employees will
be held accountable for their actions and don't allow
them to hide behind the Twinkie Defense. In response
to the Twinkie Defense, you respond with, "This is
about individual responsibility - not trying to hide
behind excuses."

Deploy these field-tested and proven strategies and
youll be coaching employees like a pro!