![]() I’m your officer, and I want to ensure that I teach, coach and mentor you so that you’re successful in your career. Going forward, my expectation is that you arrive on time and are in proper uniform, ready to start our shift together. “Are you willing to arrive to work on time?” “Are there any obstacles that prevent you from arriving to work on time?” Are you capable of arriving to work on time?” Do you understand what time that you’re supposed to arrive to work ready for the shift based on our values and policies?” There’s no reason to be mean and yell at them. For example, someone comes into work late. You can apply UCOW in many situations, from operations to administration and everything in between. Did the effort to educate them in the area fall short? Did they misinterpret information? You never will know unless you ask and allow open and honest communication in an environment where team members don’t feel demeaned or belittled. What if they don’t believe that the skill or guideline is important or they believe that the skill or guideline is outside of their skill set? That’s valuable intelligence to have. When you ask team members “Are you willing to perform this skill or follow this guideline?”, one would hope that they would say “Yes”. If there is an obstacle that the department or a person is presenting but no one is aware of it, how do you help to fix the issue? Again, open and clear communication is the way of going about that. However, if you don’t ask the team members the question, you don’t get to the root cause of the issue. ![]() ObstaclesĪsking team members “Are there any obstacles that prevent you from performing this skill or adhering to this guideline?” could prompt an answer that indicates lack of training, lack of equipment or lack of leadership, for example, or it could prompt nothing at all. However, if the team member’s response is “Yes” but you have information that indicates otherwise, a courageous conversation is needed, and you can turn once again to teaching, coaching and mentoring. If the team member’s response to the question is “Yes,” then the conversation can move on quickly. A team member’s response of “No” means that there’s an issue that must be corrected, and correcting the issues ensures that the team member can be taught, coached and mentored to a point where that individual can be successful. CapableĪsking team members “Are you capable of performing this skill or following this guideline?” actually can end up relating to more than just a skill or guideline. Team members explaining the issue in a manner that changes the narrative because of a simple misunderstanding can permit the lines of communication to flow more freely, so everyone is on the same page. UnderstandĪsking team members “Do you understand the issue at hand?” allows them a chance to explain their view of the issue and gives you a chance to help them to understand your perception of the issue based on information that you received. That likely is done by having a courageous conversation, and utilizing the four words during the conversation should help you to teach, coach and mentor all at the same time. One of the first steps is to seek to grasp the matter. What is the practical application of the four words? Let’s say that you have an issue that you’re dealing with. I didn’t coin the acronym nor the phrase “courageous conversations,” but they are very useful on a daily basis. Four words- understand, capable, obstacles and willingness, or UCOW-are the keys to that process. Recently, I witnessed a process that can be helpful to having those conversations. In all professions, leaders must have courageous conversations with their team members to help those people to learn and develop.
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