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Responsibility and ownership – if every employee demonstrated these two qualities, how much easier management would be! One way that will really encourage these qualities is coaching.

Don’t confuse coaching with training. Training is about putting knowledge into someone. Coaching is drawing knowledge out with questions that inspire the coachee to think through and solve issues from their own experience. One great coaching technique is GROW, pioneered in John Whitmore’s book Coaching for Performance.

“When I want to, I perform better than when I have to”

John Whitmore, racing driver and performance coach

case study Pierre was an outstanding salesperson. However, he ran into trouble when he was asked to coach other salespeople. He became impatient when waiting for answers to his coaching questions – the coachees simply weren’t as fast in their thought processes as him. Eventually he started to prompt the coachees with answers he was looking for. He even began to ask questions that they could only say yes or no to. Great performers do not always make great coaches.

■ G = Goal. What is the goal that you want the coachee to achieve? Is it a short-term or long-term goal? Will you share the goal with the employee?

■ R = Reality. What is happening now? How aware is your coachee of the behaviours they are currently employing? What are the underlying reasons for their behaviours?

■ O = Options. What are the alternative behaviours available to the coachee? What are the merits – or disadvantages – of each option?

■ W = Will (or way forward). What option have you chosen and how will you achieve it? What are the obstacles that you must overcome? What help will you need?

Coaching is all about asking questions in a structured, searching way. For instance, during the ‘Reality’ stage, I might ask, “So what’s happening now?” “Why do you think that’s happening?” “What effect is that having on your work?”

These questions make the coachee analyse the situation and come up with their own solutions. After all, we all prefer our own solutions to problems!

Coaching is a powerful way of building accountability in your people.