How to – Support Improvement When I do “Shadow Consulting” (working with someone on a one-on-one basis) with clients, it’s for a wide variety of reasons: the person needs to create a strategy in order to accomplish a goal, wants to change a behavior, develop a new skill, or have me hold their “feet to the fire” to insure that they stay focused on attaining a new or especially challenging objective.

There are times when their boss, employees, colleagues and coworkers can assist in the process. Improving performance may not be solely determined by the client. Improvement can also be defined by others. If change happens, there are benefits for everyone. In order to weight the scales on the side of improvement, it requires some effort on the part of others in the workplace.

What we can ask of others:

Forget the past
You can’t change history but you can let it go. It requires a shift from critic to helper.

Tell the truth
Without honest feedback, the chance of improvement is severely diminished.

Be supportive
It’s easy to be cynical and judgmental (especially if it’s your boss who is trying to improve his or her performance); but a helpful optimist is more likely to see improvement than someone who is betting against it.

What about them?
If everyone is moving toward improving something, support can be reciprocated. Now people are equals who are engaged in the same effort to improve.

I like to ask managers how they know they are doing a good job. While the boss’s opinion is important, and a job title might appear to be validation, the people who are really in the know are the person’s direct coworkers. In the workplace, changing and improving performance is about more than the person who is improving. It is also about the people who notice it and are impacted by it as well.  12:02 PM •