What mental image do you have in your mind when you hear the word coach? A sports coach is usually the first thing we think of, but some of you may have thought about a singing coach or a speech coach or possibly maybe even a mentor. Effective managers are also coaches, and they utilize performance coaching every day.
Performance coaching is continually focusing and directing feedback to lift an individual’s performance to higher levels. Typically performance coaching involves: interactive conversations; explicit, observable fact-based performance feedback; and concrete suggestions to lift performance through learning and development.
Can you think of someone in your life who provided coaching to you that made an impact? What did you learn? What did you do differently after the coaching?
Coaching addresses employee’s good, bad and indifferent behaviors. It aims to develop and/or sustain their performance allowing the employee to flourish in their current role or maybe help them reach the next level in their career. Coaching promotes open communication allowing for managers to get input from their employees and provide and obtain feedback to ensure alignment. Effective coaching will build trust between manager and employee; thus leading to increased engagement.
Coaching is more proactive than managing. Being proactive means the coach addresses issues before they become problems and prevents them from ever happening. Thus reducing the number of formal discipline or corrective action plans for managers; the tough conversations managers try to avoid. Coaching sessions can be very informal and quick, and focuses on the performance of each team member to develop skills, judgment, attitude, etc. These coaching sessions are generally seen as a positive because it demonstrates the coach cares and is investing time to help them.
The basic framework for performance coaching is a continuous model consisting of five main steps. Performance coaching is not a one-time session.
Step one: Observe
- A coach/leader should be able to spot opportunities for their employee to expand his or her capabilities and lift performance
- This requires the coach to know their people and to understand the jobs
Step two: Analyze
- Identify the difference or gap between current and desired levels of performance or end goal because this forms the basis of the coaching engagement
- Compare actual and current performance with the participant’s perception of his or her performance and determine any gap between reality and their perception
Step three: Explore
- Get all the facts and never assume
- Ask open ended questions and do the 5 Why exercise to fully understand the situation and their perceptions
- You should look for ways to remove barriers, but not accountability
Step four: Prepare
- Use something like the STAR model (situation/task, action, results) model to prepare feedback
- Focus on the behavior(s), skill(s), etc. and not the person to avoid them feeling personally attacked
Step five: Deliver
- The coach needs to provide his/her perspective on current performance and expected performance
- Set clear expectations
Once the feedback is delivered, the coach goes back to step one to observe the performance to see if what was coached works, needs changed or reinforced.
Coaching is a powerful way to reinforce great performance and to lift current performance to higher levels. So whether the employee is performing poorly, performing well, looking to get promoted or is happy doing what they are doing, the performance coaching framework will keep you and your employees engaged and performing at high levels.
Brandon Brazeel, MBA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
Chief People Officer
