Re-Contracting for Leaders - A Short Guide

As a manager, re-contracting with your team is one of the most important things you can do. Let’s imagine you have been asked to coach your team in a new set of behaviours, something straightforward like negotiation (you want them to negotiate more keenly and give away less discount). Now, you could just pick them up after every call and try and coach them, or far better, you get everyone together and explain that for the next 4 weeks that is going to be your primary focus, and that you are committing to coaching them on this area of each call, everyone will be receiving this intervention and they should expect it and welcome it because the outcome will be more money for everyone concerned.

By doing this you are setting things up clearly for the team, including them in this developmental process and also asking them to contribute to its success. Within that contract are going to be new boundaries of what constitutes success, you can explain what the expectations are.

Now behavioural change is one thing – you may be re-contracting for different reasons such as your team are under performing. So as a manager you need to make it clear that some of the administrative stuff you used to do is going to take a backseat, and you are going to be focused on them and their performance until it is turned around. Usually this would be a verbal contract – I will do this, and you will do something else – do you agree? It may also take the form of a written contract that everyone signs up to.

There are great examples in all contact centre settings where managers re-contracted with their teams and that focus on performance changed them from mediocre teams to top performing teams, very quickly.

You can also re-contract one to one with an individual. That action can very quickly turn someone round in terms of their attitude or performance. Also, managers can re-contract with each other through their hierarchy to achieve different outcomes.

This is one of many interventions managers can call upon, but it also has the added benefit of being something you can change quickly, weekly, or daily, depending on the ask of the business, and your skills as a coach.

For more information on coaching, please listen to our Contact Centre Focus podcast episodes ‘Coaching’ – ‘Disloyal Bonding’ and ‘Leadership Styles Part 1 and 2’.