In an earlier post – Great Questions for Improving Performance through 121s I offered some questions that have worked well for me in 121s.
Well, here are some more.
- What could you do which, done really well, would make a real difference to this organisation?
- What do you need, from me, in order to help you to make your best contribution to the company?
- What are the things for which I, and the organisation, should hold you accountable? What should we expect from you?
- How can we best use your knowledge, skills, passion and interest to help the company develop?
- Who uses the outputs of your work? What can you do to make sure that your outputs are well used?
Of course these questions can also work well outside of 121s. The real point is that only when you start to explore questions like these with each member of your team will you really start to improve communication, teamwork and performance.
And of course the answers to the questions change continually as the business and its environment change – so this needs to be an ongoing and frequent dialogue.
This is the real work of coaching, development and performance management.