DDHA 8113 Week 8 Coaching Memo Example

Memorandum

To: Nurse Manager, Neuroscience Step-Down Unit, North Campus

From: Director, Neurosciences Service Line (DHA student)

Date: Month Day, Year

Re: What I saw at Tuesday's practice council, and one thing to try before we meet again

Why I Am Writing

Thank you for letting me sit in on Tuesday's practice council. You asked me to watch how the meeting ran and tell you one thing that would make the biggest difference, and this memo is my answer. I have kept it to one pattern on purpose. I saw several things worth discussing, but feedback that tries to cover everything tends to land on nothing, and research on feedback interventions has found that their effects on performance vary widely, with feedback that draws attention to the task helping more than feedback that draws attention to the person (Kluger & DeNisi, 1996). So this memo is about one thing you do in meetings, not about you.

What Went Well

The meeting had a clear purpose, which was to plan how the unit will receive early transfers from the neuro ICU under the new rules. You opened by explaining why the change was happening and what the night charge nurse's memo had contributed, which gave credit where it was due. Your agenda kept to time. And you closed by assigning three tasks to named people with dates, which many meetings never do. Those are strengths, and I would not change them.

The Pattern I Noticed

Here is the one pattern. Five times in the meeting, you asked the group a real question, and each time, after a short pause, you answered it yourself. I timed three of the pauses informally. They were about three or four seconds long. The questions were good ones. For example, you asked what the night nurses would need to do hourly neurological checks on three post-surgical patients at once. After a few seconds of silence, you said you thought they would need a second set of eyes from the charge nurse and moved on. Two of the night nurses at the table looked as if they were about to speak. One of them told me afterward that she had a different idea, about clustering the checks with other care, but that the discussion had already moved.

I do not think you were trying to close the conversation. I think you were trying to keep the meeting moving and to spare the group an awkward silence. The effect, though, was that the people who do the work at night contributed less than they could have, and the plan reflects your view more than theirs. That matters especially for this change, because the night nurses are the ones who will carry the early transfers, and their ideas are the ones most likely to make the plan work at three in the morning.

What I Am Asking You to Try

I would like you to try one thing at the next two practice council meetings. After you ask the group a question, wait until at least two people have answered before you offer your own view. If the silence feels long, count it out slowly in your head, or say that you are going to wait because you want to hear from the people closest to the work. Psychologists who study goal pursuit have found that plans phrased as if-then statements, which tie a specific action to a specific situation, help people follow through on their intentions (Gollwitzer, 1999). So the commitment could be phrased this way: if I ask the group a question, then I will wait for two answers before I speak.

I am asking for one commitment rather than several because a single, specific change is easier to practice and easier to notice. If it works, you will hear ideas in those meetings that you are not hearing now. If it does not, we will learn something about why the silence happens, which is also useful.

How We Will Know

I would like us to meet again on [date], three weeks from now, after the two meetings. Before then, please ask one person you trust, perhaps your assistant manager, to note at each meeting how many times you asked a question and how many people answered before you did. I will not attend those meetings, because my presence might change what happens. At our meeting we will look at those notes together and decide whether to continue, adjust or try something different. A meta-analysis of workplace coaching found that coaching had positive effects on performance, well-being, coping and goal-directed self-regulation (Theeboom et al., 2014), but those effects come from the practice between conversations, not from the memo itself.

What I Will Do

Coaching that runs only in one direction is not much of a partnership. Before our next meeting, I will look at my own habits in the service line leadership meeting, where I suspect I do something similar. I will tell you what I find. If you notice me answering my own questions when we meet, please say so.

Closing

You run a well-organized meeting that ends with real assignments, which is harder than it looks. The one change I am suggesting is small: let the silence after a question last long enough for the night nurses to fill it. I am looking forward to hearing what you notice.

References

Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American Psychologist, 54(7), 493-503. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.54.7.493

Kluger, A. N., & DeNisi, A. (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory. Psychological Bulletin, 119(2), 254-284. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.119.2.254

Theeboom, T., Beersma, B., & van Vianen, A. E. M. (2014). Does coaching work? A meta-analysis on the effects of coaching on individual level outcomes in an organizational context. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 9(1), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2013.837499