When an employee asks you for help, you want to be able to provide guidance but refrain from micromanaging so the employee can own his or her plan and propose next steps.
Harvard Business Review offers the following questions you can ask employees to help them think through their plan.
- Get specific: “What are you planning to do next?”
- Get positive: “What is already working for you in this process?”
- Get buy-in: “What is the opportunity here?”
- Get resourceful: “What else do you need to move forward?”
- Get realistic: “What do you need to stop doing to move forward with this?”
- Get collaborative: “Who else do you need to talk with/work with/align with?”
- Get mental: “What is your current mindset?”
- Get tracking: “How will you measure progress?”
- Get prioritizing: “What step, if done first, will make other steps easier?”
- Get on board: “How else can I help?”
If you think the employee may need a bit more guidance, you can work through the questions together.
