As more states start to open up, some businesses have started heading back to the office while other companies have found that remote work really isn’t all that bad. Whether you’re headed back into the office or are going to be sticking at home for a while, now is a great time to brush up on your coaching skills.

Just because your company’s workload may have slowed doesn’t mean that your job as a manager and a coach should stop. And though a perfectly normal human reaction to these uncertain times is to simply curl up and wait for it to pass, we can’t give in to that temptation. Even though we may not know what the future looks like, our current reality actually provides us each with a tremendous opportunity for growth. Your most important job as a leader is to help each one of your employees capitalize on that opportunity, and the way you do that is by coaching.

We teach a simple framework called RealTime Coaching. The basic tenets are simple: it all boils down to WDIP. You as a coach need to help your employee determine what they Want, what they’re Doing to get what they want, whether what they’re doing Is working, and finally to make a Plan that will get them what they want.

By asking your employees questions around these four areas, you’ll give them a chance to use this crisis for the better. Maybe their workload has slowed a little, what do they want to learn with that extra time? Maybe their work has become overwhelming, how can they create a better system to manage it all? Or maybe they are dealing with anxiety about returning to the office, how can they make a plan to control all the aspects that they can in order to relieve some of that stress?

The point is not to tell them what you want or how to get there, but to let them uncover what they want and to make their own plan of action. Using this approach will help them take accountability for these goals as well as whether they reach them or not. It all has to come from them, otherwise they won’t buy in.

To start coaching using the WDIP model today, download this list of sample questions for each category. And if you want to go deeper, give us a call to talk about becoming a certified RealTime Coach.

Stay safe and stay healthy.