Performance Coaching: Empowering Others

Why We Coach

Managing a team is not about being in charge, not about command, not about making decisions.  It is ALL about empowering team members, establishing expectations, and providing coaching.

Coaching is the key ingredient needed to development and empowerment the individual. Coaching is a form of employee training and development. When new competencies are needed due to a change in the work situation, or when poor performance indicates that remedial instruction is needed, managers can fill the gap through coaching. Over time, coaching can also prepare employees for advancement and additional responsibility.

“You get the best effort from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within.” – Bob Nelson

Managers and leaders of all roles coach in order to build employees’ knowledge and skills. Unless managers are handed a staff that possesses all of the knowledge and skills they will ever need to do their jobs, some learning must take place during the employment relationship. Coaching is simply a way that managers supplement any formal training and on-the-job learning that their employees get, and a way to give remedial instruction when performance deficiencies necessitate it.

Coaching is a key element of a longer term effort to promote employee development. One criterion that leaders are evaluated on is how well they develop others. Leaders who are very effective at achieving goals such as or raising profits often do a poor job of preparing their replacements. When they leave, their former team can flounder because no one was prepared to take over. One characteristic of the best leaders is that they groom others. They empower their team and pass on the ability to further coach and empower successive waves of employees.

“Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.” – Timothy Gallwey

Lastly, we coach everyone, so that everyone can benefit and grow. Coaching is not something only for low performers. It is for everyone, so that everyone can be raised as far as each of them want to go!

Delivering Feedback

Anyone can deliver good news - it is happy and that makes it easy. Many struggle with the delivery of bad news. It is not what people want to hear and that makes it difficult. Performance management involves providing an assessment of work results along with a clear recommendation on how to improve.

Only by delivering clear and direct feedback can our performance management be effective. The degree of specificity and detail used in coaching will vary from situation to situation. Often managers coach by guiding the person through the process of figuring things out for themselves. Higher level managers whose reports are other managers and professional staff may rely more on monitoring their professional development. This is where we begin the passage into mentoring rather than coaching. Helping them see opportunities for self-improvement, and encouraging them to progress in their development. Coaching entry-level employees will involve more explicit instruction.  

Coaching is not managing - it is leading your team beyond expectations and growing them to see "thinking out of the box" as the normal approach. Often leaders assume weekly staff meetings or regular individual check ins is coaching - I disagree. Coaching drives performance for the individual by building him or her as high as they can go - not making them reach par or the status quo.  Coaching is to promote greatness in everyone. Few organizations teach the skills needed to drive the coaching process.

The coaching process is actually a spectrum of activities depending on the professional development of the employee and the work environment. The spectrum ranges from direct instruction, through coaching, and eventually to mentoring. The illustration below is my attempt to indicate how these are related.

“Who, exactly, seeks out a coach? Winners who want even more out of life.” – Chicago Tribune 

Assessments

Take a moment for this quiz. It will help you understand where  your ability to deliver constructive coaching in difficult situations.

Self-Assessment: Measuring Your Crucial Accountability Skills

“Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.” Albert Einstein   

Steps to Empowerment

 

Win: Win.

Stress mutual purpose, the purpose of coaching sessions is to help the individual and help the team. To develop that “win-win” attitude you have to gain trust and establish a mutual level of respect. Basically, you do this by working together – “collaborating”. First, make sure the employee understands the desired result you both want to achieve – to make them more effective and happier at work. Second, have them provide their input on goals and resources they need to achieve the goal. Third, have them decide how they should be accountable for their progress – they set goals and targets. Through collaboration, you work with others to develop solutions that will benefit all the parties involved. The key concept is for you both to believe that a synergistic solution is possible and that it is your mutual goal. It is essential to have that environment where everyone can win. Again, the key to this is to build trust and rapport.

“People want to believe you are sincerely interested in them as a person, not just what they can do for you.” – John Wooden

 

 Timely

Making coaching sessions more frequent, scheduled, and formal actually makes them less stressful. Most employees have had so long a history in a paradigm where coaching was always a "correction" following a failure OR a poor evaluation of your work that only happens once every year. Making them frequent lets you make them less stressful and over time a desired meeting and interaction rather than a dreaded one. It should occur as soon as practical after the interaction, completion of the deliverable, or observation is made.

The actual frequency is rather dependent on the professional level of the employee and the nature of the work environment. For all but senior level management I would never space the sessions beyond 4 weeks. Weekly for new hires and in fast paced high performance environments are often a good place to start. Two week frequency is a good pace for established employees. After about 4 months it will be clear what is working, who needs greater frequency to stay on track (keep improving) and where they can be spaced out farther.

Listen

Open the dialogue from the side of listening. You should spend most of the coaching time listening and asking open ended questions. Dig for the question behind the question if you will. Allowing employees to suggest ways in which a certain procedure or practice is done can provide a path to empowerment. Giving them this level of authority makes them more invested in the success of the project or task, listening is the first step down this path.

First Person

Always have concrete example and start your statements with "I think" or "I saw". You should never lead with "I heard" or "they said". or the worst "I am hearing". Make about the two of you. Speak from the heart and be authentic.

Clarity

Clarify your performance expectations in the situation. Use specific examples of the performance issue. Showing what a home run looks like is often an effective approach. If you can provide a good "go-by" for a form, report, or study that is great. Many great artists started out painting copies of Rembrandts. This is no different. More on being clear - you may need to establish clear written minimum standards. For employees who are just starting out it is often helpful to have a clear standard or minimum that is written down.

Excuses

Excuses may occur during coaching, when handling excuses, rephrase the point by taking a comment or statement that was perceived by the employee to be blaming or accusatory and recast it as an encouragement for the employee to examine his or her behavior. Respond empathically to show support for the employee's situation and communicate an understanding of both the content and feeling of the employee's comment. This is part of building trust and understanding – it is different than saying “don’t worry about it” or “you get a pass”. No, it is saying “I understand how you feel, I see your emotion, and how can we move forward through this together. The work is hard but we are committed to doing it together.”

“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.” -Ben Franklin

Agreement on Goals

Asks the employee for agreement on the issue. Have them take the notes and recorded the actions, due dates, goals, and deliverables for the next period. Coaching includes goal setting for the employee. The coach helps the employee set specific goals. Both of you work together to create a plan to reach those goals. Coaches can customize objectives and support the needs of the employee and  their particular role. The coach is also a resource if the employee needs support along the way to be successful. Having a set of challenging goals is motivating and empowers the employee to work beyond the minimum requirements. This will become the habit and mindset of the individual overtime and they will have moved up the ladder of self-motivation and engagement.

Be Specific

Be direct, saying you did a great job or you failed are too general and do not provide insight into the behavior you would like to see repeated or changed. Being specific with the deliverable gives employees a clear goal and encourages them to perform at optimal levels to reach whatever measurement has been set.

Behavior

Behavior should be changed, not People. Avoid making the feedback seem like judgment. "I have observed" then refer to the behavior - focus on behavior and not on the person. Describe what you observed and how those behaviors impact the results.

Private

 Always find a private setting, if you do not feel the need for a private setting you are not talking honestly enough about development. It is better to sit at a table, round is best, not across a desk. This reduces the stress of the situation and puts you both on less threatening ground. If you can do this in a location that is not either of your offices that is best - a conference room that is private and away from distractions is best. This may sound silly but it is a major factor in unloading anxiety for some employees.

Getting Over It & Giving Praise

We need to always instill the concept to the employee that a failure on the past is behind us, we look forward, we grow, we learn from mistakes - and then we leave them behind. Get over it. Move on. Don’t cry over spilt milk.

Along the same lines acknowledging the accomplishments of high-performing employees in front of all members of an organization can help keep morale high. Always give credit where credit is due and offer praise whenever it is warranted.

Get it? Public praise for success and never look back at the areas that didn't go so great. Stay positive, emphasize the good, and let the past go.

 

Employee Performance Review - An Easy How-To-Guide  

 

 

Body of Knowledge

 No one has to go it alone - there is a tremendous body of knowledge in print explaining coaching theories, skills, and techniques. If you are in the arena of management the best thing you can do is start reading AND NEVER STOP.

Here are a few that I have linked to Amazon for your convenience. Always remember there may not be any right answers - but there are plenty of tools to help you in your journey.

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High

Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well

Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter

Good Leaders Ask Great Questions: Your Foundation for Successful Leadership

Emotional Intelligence 2.0

 

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Tim

timothypatrickcrocker@gmail.com

Tim Crocker currently is engaged with the SASOL LCCP Cracker Project in Westlake Louisiana as the Utilities and Infrastructure Manager LCF. During his 25-year career, he has worked on infrastructure development at BASF, Biofuels technology development with British Petroleum, and Utilities Management at Georgia Pacific and Domtar. His areas of expertise are Process Improvement (Kaizen), Steam and Power Generation, Water Treatment Systems, Chemical Recovery, Energy Management, Waste Treatment, and Performance Management. Tim received a BS in Chemistry from the University of Portland along with a second Major in Philosophy. Later he earned his MS in Paper Science Technology from the Institute of Paper Science in Atlanta, GA. Currently, Tim lives in the Moss Bluff community with his wife Cathy and daughter Yuri. They enjoy gardening, amateur astronomy, cooking, and model rocketry.