Content: Performance Coaching, performance coach, performance management, performance feedback, performance coaching and business,  manager as coach, performance feedback coaching and coaching skills, performance management and executive coaching, workplace performance coaching, coaching, manager as coach, performance coach, performance coaching and business coaching, performance coaching skills, performance management, performance coaching,  executive coaching performance management, business coaching and performance coaching skills, business coaching and performance coaching skills and executive performance coaching, workplace performance coaching, coaching, manager as coach, performance coaching, performance feedback, performance management, performance coach and performance feedback
 

 


 

       Certified Master Coach - Some Introductory Notes: 
      Performance Coaching and Performance Management
          -The need for training in the use of Modern Performance Coaching Practices in the workplace ©

           (includes extracts from new text book 'Behavioral Coaching' by Zeus and Skiffington -published and copyrighted by McGraw-Hill, New York)

Managers are now expected to coach workers every day: 
Nearly nine out 10 firms expect their managers and supervisors to deliver performance coaching as part of their day-to-day work, according to a new survey by the Institute of Personnel and Development.

The vast majority of employers believe coaching can deliver tangible benefits to both individuals and organizations, said the Institute. The majority of employers planned to increase the use of coaching over the next few years but not necessarily update the training of their 'Managers/Leaders as Coach', it added. The research also found that performance coaching provided by a manager or supervisor is becoming increasingly popular as the value of sustainable on the job learning is recognized in the workplace. However, research also suggests that if coaching is to deliver these significant benefits, employers need to ensure that their line managers are provided with updated, cutting-edge training as the 'Manager as Coach' to be able to deliver the results.

Because organizations are not investing enough in helping their managers/leaders develop cutting-edge performance coaching skills, there are some significant bottom-line consequences. 
In a recent large industry-wide study it was found that most managers reported that they were confident in their ability to coach. However, the study showed that the managers’/leaders’ skills levels as coaches were typically poor and that as a consequence they were not nearly as effective in their coaching as they believe themselves to be. Often times, they believed that coaching consisted of just providing 1-to-1 instructional feedback to their staff members on what to do in a given situation to perform better. However, a well-trained Manager/Leader as Coach also supports their staff by using advanced developmental and learning tools and providing them with personalized self-coaching strategies to achieve sustainable levels of performance.

Most Managers/Leaders/Supervisors/Team Leaders believe they are providing performance oriented coaching by simply providing positional technical skills training and feedback. 
Many recent studies have shown that “Technical Skills” (our natural skills and learnt skills through training and experience) only represent at best 20% of the input into our performance. The remaining 80% which affects our performance comes from our "Personal Skills" (those crucial other elements such as our thinking and our behavioral aspects -such as: Ability to choose or make a decision, Assertiveness, Authenticity, Commitment to grow, Concentration, Emotional stability, Enthusiasm, Judgment, Energy level, Resourcefulness, Honesty, Integrity, Open-mindedness, Optimism, Persistence, Performing well under stress, Reliability, Self-confidence, Self-control, Self-reliance, Self-respect, Initiative or drive etc). Few Managers/Leaders understand just how deep rooted their own behavior patterns are, let alone how to positively change them in other people.
 
Peak performance coaching tools and techniques.
To create lasting performance change it is necessary to first understand the positive and negative influence that a person's Personal Skills has on the execution of their Technical Skills. Only when we fully understand a person's behavioral patterns and create positive self-managing coaching strategies can we assist a person to create lasting performance change.

Performance Coaching is frequently confused with other types of coaching, such as Executive Coaching or Leadership Coaching.
Performance Coaching is a form of Directive Coaching versus Executive Coaching or Leadership Coaching which is a form of Non-Directive Coaching. Broadly speaking, coaching methodologies are either directive or non-directive in approach. Directive Coaching involves the busy Manager who sometimes acts as a Coach: telling, instructing, giving advice, offering guidance, giving feedback, making suggestions etc. Non-Directive Coaching involves helping someone to solve their own problems. The key to the success of non-directive coaching is that the responsibility for deciding and taking action on the outcome remains with the coachee throughout. The non-directive approach places greater emphasis on the learning process with a specialist full-time (executive/leadership) coach acting more as a catalyst for new awareness.

The directive style of coaching has been adopted as the model for coaching for performance, such as; helping provide people with direction, guiding them in how to master new skills, procedures, tasks and meet performance goals etc.

Performance Coaching methods have changed little in 10 years, perhaps even 20 years.
The traditional performance coaching formula has many limitations. For example the traditional approach focuses on a single-issue problem and assumes all individuals can work through it for themselves in a short time. The traditional approach is also passive. The traditional "coach" doesn't have time nor the techniques to help a person understand why they may be stuck with an unhelpful mental framework or 'unproductive behavior'. Many poor performing individuals and teams who seem stuck never really change until the "coach" can assist them to think differently.

When managers are trained using outdated, traditional coach-education manuals, the results are greater myths and confusion rather than improved clarity of knowledge. If something "works" at least once in an important setting, it is likely to be repeated as a "valuable" coaching procedure, despite completely ignoring all the times it may not work. It also follows that when an employee achieves some level of performance success, the manager feels justified in his/her style of coaching. However, if an individual does not reach their set goals, there can be a blame-game around what they and the manager did and did not do to cause the unsatisfactory result.
 
Coaches need to understand the value in staying ahead of the rapidly evolving process of performance coaching.
The only way to improve coaching knowledge is to change the many unfounded beliefs into valid ordered knowledge, that is, coaching best-practice processes and standards. The introduction of orderliness, if it is accepted, also reduces error.

Organizational, team and individual performance results will remain disordered and inconsistent unless a standardized coaching approach and the same coaching methodologies are adopted by all managers with their employees. It is imperative that coaching best-practices and evidence-based principles are introduced to the coach's knowledge base. A failure to keep abreast of an ever expanding knowledge base of performance coaching best-practices will halt any progress in personal achievements and performance outcomes.

Some Definitions:

Performance can be seen as the Actual Results vs Desired Results. Any discrepancy, where Actual is less than Desired, could constitute the performance improvement zone. 

Performance planning occurs when goals and objectives are established.
 
Performance Evaluations provide a comparison of actual on-the-job performance to established performance measurement standards. As a best practice, the supervisor and the employee regularly discuss expectations, performance standards and objectives, set expectations, gather data, and provide on going feedback to employees to assist them in utilizing their skills, expertise and ideas to produce results. To provide this direction, Performance Records and a Coaching Log are guides that can be used by supervisors, in addition to their own best practices, to gather data  to provide ongoing feedback to employees regarding their performance.
 
Performance measurement standards are communicated to employees with expectations for each position.  
 
Performance measurement is the process of assessing progress toward achieving predetermined goals, while performance management is building on that process adding the relevant communication and action on the progress achieved against these predetermined goals. To provide this direction, managers/supervisors communicate to employees what is expected of them, define satisfactory performance for those expectations, and then monitor and evaluate the performance on an on going basis.
 
Performance appraisal occurs when individual performance is formally documented and feedback is delivered
 
Performance coaching occurs when a manager/supervisor (using the Indirect Coaching Model) intervenes and provides feedback for the purpose of improving performance (see below for further details)
 
Performance improvement is any effort targeted at closing the gap between Actual Results and Desired Results.
 
Performance Management is an ongoing dialogue between the manager/supervisor and employee that links expectations, ongoing feedback and coaching, performance evaluations, development planning, and follow-up. Performance management should be both Strategic (about broader issues and longer-term goals) and Integrated (linking various aspects of the business, people management  and individuals and teams). It should provide the means to link individual and team performance with organisational effectiveness and the organisation's mission.
 
Performance Coaching Feedback is a process by which the coach provides effective and constructive feedback on the coachee's performance of learned skills. Effective performance is reinforced and less-than-desirable performance is worked on to improve. Feedback should be information that highlights strengths, positive behavior and a means for skills critiquing, encouragement of new learning and the explanation of the relationship between what is expected and what has been accomplished after the work is performed or an action is taken. Feedback can take many forms; it can be informal or formal.
The Need to better train Managers/Supervisors as Coaches and Professional Coaches (External and Internal) how to employ validated, proven informal coaching strategies and techniques:
The Manager as Coach. The manager is expected to get the very best performance from their people by providing coaching on an 'in-time' basis during the course of their normal day-to-day management/leadership duties. A successful outcome is very much dependent on their ability to help their employees develop personal skills and technical skills needed to improve performance levels. While coaching may occur spontaneously with positive results, its benefits are too important to be left to chance. A well-defined process, support structure, and validated behavioral-change techniques and tools (versus old forms of traditional coaching still taught to most managers) are required to ensure a standardized approach, reliability, sustainability, and broad-based bottom-line impact.
 
Today's Manager and the full-time professional coach (external or internal) must be taught how to use 21st century, cutting-edge, valid and reliable directive coaching practices and not last century's outdated, unaccountable coaching practices. Performance coaching practices have evolved dramatically over the last few years and now provide leading-edge, industry-proven processes, tools and skills practice for both part-time and full-time coaches to become far more effective in helping people change themselves and their performance.

The Certified Master Coach Course and the 'Manager as Coach' Course (licensed to CMC graduates) provide the latest training in the use of evidence-based psychological methodologies to effect lasting individual change and learning:
Dr Skiffington's invitational, fast-tracked, 4 Day, Very Small Group Certified Master Coach Course (conducted in N.Y., London, Sydney etc) meets the critical needs for business and executive coaches to be trained and mentored in the use of validated, reliable psychology-based tools and techniques. And, Dr Skiffington's 'Manager as Coach' Training Program can be licensed by graduates of her Master Coach Course.   Read More >.... 

© 2006 Behavioral Coaching Institute

  

  

Home | Dr Skiffington | Master Coach -Course Content | Registration of Interest  Form 
 CoachingTechniques, Coaching Models and Tools 

Content:  Performance Coaching, performance management, performance coach, business coaching and performance coaching skills, business coaching and performance coaching skills and executive performance coaching, workplace performance coaching, coaching, manager as coach, performance coaching, performance feedback, performance management, performance coach and performance feedback performance feedback, performance coaching and business,  manager as coach, performance feedback coaching and coaching skills, performance management and executive coaching, workplace performance coaching, coaching, manager as coach, performance coach, performance coaching and business coaching, performance coaching skills, performance management, performance coaching,  executive coaching performance management,