Coaching for Success

Coaching is perhaps the most effective method of increasing performance available to managers, team leaders, and colleagues.  This article defines coaching and outlines a process for effective coaching.

Coaching Defined

Coaching is perhaps the most effective method of increasing performance available to managers, team leaders, and colleagues.  

If you wish to improve the skills of your employees, you must plan to observe them and provide them with feedback.  If you’re like most supervisors or managers, you have limited time and are looking for employees to become proficient – and independent – faster.

Entelechy’s Coaching Model is designed to help you do just that!

The Coaching Model is appropriate for developing the skills of employees if the employee is willing to improve.  Coaching should not be used as a softer, gentler version of corrective action; if a performance problem occurs, you will want to use the Problem Solving model.

The Coaching Model is based on several important principles:

1. There are two primary goals to coaching:

• To improve performance.

• To help employees gain the ability to self-assess.

2. It is important that the coaching sessions follow a predictable process.  This will help the coachees feel more comfortable and relaxed, which will help to ensure they actively participate in these sessions.  It is for this reason that we suggest that you share the coaching model with your employees prior to coaching.

3. Coaching is a planned development process and should not be a surprise.

4. The way you open the conversation sets the tone for what will follow.

5. After we open the conversation using our initial probe, we discuss positives first and areas for improvement last.  Beginning with positives first is motivational and accomplishes the following:

• The goal is to have employees increase their performance.  If they are not in a positive frame of mind, they will not be open to this change.

• Reinforces good behavior and ease into the coaching session.

• Builds self-esteem.

6. Ending the coaching session with a discussion of areas for development ensures that they are focusing on those areas.

7. Always give the coachee a chance to self-assess before you offer your insights.  Encouraging self-assessment is positive for several reasons:

• It encourages improvement even when you are not coaching.

• It allows you to determine why the employee may not be performing as desired; they may not know that they’re doing something incorrectly.

• It builds self-esteem.

• It increases the chances that behavior will change.

8. Reinforce correct self-assessment.

9. Defer or redirect inappropriate or incorrect self-assessment.

10. We focus coaching on only two strengths and two areas for development.  Limiting the discussion is important and accomplishes the following:

• Increases the coachee’s ability to reach proficiency.

• Focuses on the most important issues.

• Other issues can be addressed after some progress has been made on the most important issues first.

11. If an employee is not identifying areas that you identified (or has identified them incorrectly), use increasingly specific questions to allow the employee to self-assess if possible.  This allows you to determine if the employee doesn’t know what’s expected, doesn’t have the skill, or simply chooses not to demonstrate the skill.

The Coaching Model at Work

Now let's turn our attention to Entelechy's Coaching Model in practice.

Step 1: Open the Conversation

The coach opens the conversation with a general question; this helps the coach get a sense for the accuracy of the coachee’s self-assessment.  If the coachee responds with, “that was the best call ever” and you thought that the call was poor, you know that you’ll have to adjust your coaching conversation.

Step 2: Probe for What Went Well

The coach asks the coachee what went particularly well and listens for the responses.  By identifying what went well first, a positive tone for the coaching session is set.  We want to make sure that the coachee continues doing these things.  This also forces the coachee — NOT THE COACH — to identify superior performance.

Step 2a: Redirect or Defer

Sometimes the coachee will bring up a negative when you’re discussing positives.  You will want to defer that discussion until later in the coaching conversation by saying, “I’d like to talk about that more later.  What else went particularly well?”

Other times, the coachee will claim something as a positive that — in your opinion — was an area that needs development.  You will want to redirect their perception by pointing out what you saw that helped you conclude that it was less than desirable.  “Oh, really?  Did you happen to see John’s face when you discussed the product’s features?  That’s right, he seemed to lose interest when you started talking about us rather than about him....”

Step 2b: Support and Build

When the coachee correctly assesses his performance — both strengths and areas for development — support the assessment by saying, “I agree.”  Build from their conclusions to reinforce the accuracy of their self-assessment.  In this way, you are reinforcing one of the most valuable skills anyone can acquire: the ability to assess and improve their own performance.

Step 3: Probe for Areas for Development

The third step is to ask the coachee what he would change if he could do it again.  Obviously, if the coachee knows what could be improved and knows how to improve it, he won’t benefit from YOU telling him!  And by mentally rehearsing what he will do differently, the likelihood of him actually carrying out the improvement is increased.

Most experts agree that two or three areas for development are enough for anyone to work on.  Working on a laundry list of things to change is frustrating and futile.  Focus on the areas of greatest need.

When identifying areas for development, the coachee may not have identified the one that you thought was most important.  Again, you can redirect their perception by identifying what you saw that they might not have that allowed you to come to your conclusion.  “I agree that the two areas that you identified would definitely had made the call go better.  What do you think the effect of your product feature presentation was on the customer?  Why?  What might you do differently the next time...?”

Step 4: Summarize and Support

Even though you may have limited the coaching to a few strengths and a couple areas for development, you will want to briefly summarize the discussion, especially what the coachee will do differently the next time.  This recap will cause the most important things to remain fresh in memory.  You will also want to support the changes by saying something like, “I think those changes will make your next call go even better.”

Follow these four steps to help your employees and colleagues increase their performance.  In the next issue we discuss how to give feedback within the coaching framework.

(This information comes from Coaching for Performance, a module in Entelechy’s High Performance Management program.

Always Think Positive, There Is Always Somebody Worse Off Than You

This article is about learning to think positive. There are far too many people walking about in a state of gloom and depression. I have to admit that I was one of these people until I managed to turn my whole life around at the age of twenty-two by taking a different approach. I hope you find the article beneficial and enjoyable to read.

From around the age of eleven when I started high school to the age of twenty-two I was not exactly a happy person. One person actually mentioned that I walked around like I had the weight of the world and its problems on my shoulders.

I was always looking at other people in my class for example and thought that they were so much luckier than I was. They did not seem to have half of the problems that I did. I was jealous of them as they were seemingly cruising through life where as it was one huge struggle for me.

You may be wondering what my troubles were. I had a stutter which had affected me from the age of four. Stuttering put a huge dent in my confidence and made me withdraw into my shell. 

I had a weight problem which was mainly caused by comfort eating when I was depressed. Since birth, I have had a bald patch on my head, it is not a large area of baldness, however it was big enough for people to notice and mock me. I was always the shortest person in the class and for a male I am well below the average height at five-foot four.

At the age of eighteen, I was having a conversation with one of friends who is called John. John was one of the people I had always been jealous of for many different reasons. On this particular evening we were both fairly drunk and John had became quite emotional. During our conversation he told me that his father was an alcoholic and that at certain times when he arrived home worse for wear that he would hit his mom. He was very worried about this and was not sure what to do.

Over the next few years, I found out aspects of other people's lives in my circle of friends, which I had not been aware of. The issues I had were very visible, where as their problems had been hidden and kept secret.

I have become more and more interested in world affairs since the age of about twenty. Certain events from around the world have really shocked and I find it hard to imagine how I would cope living it various countries. I am now very grateful that I was born in the UK.

I have learnt that we all have problems and that in most cases there is always people worse off than ourselves. I now try to think in a much more positive way and am very happy with the cards I have been dealt.

Addiction to Worry

Carole started counseling with me because she was depressed. She had been ill with chronic fatigue syndrome for a long time and believed her depression was due to this. In the course of our work together, she became aware that her depression was actually coming from her negative thinking - Carole was a constant worrier. Many words out of her mouth centered around her concerns that something bad might happen. “What if I never get well?” “What if my husband gets sick?” “What if I run out of money?” (Carole and her husband ran a very successful business and there was no indication that it would not go on being successful). “What if my son gets into drugs?” “What if my kids don’t get into good colleges?” “What if someone breaks into the house?”

Her worry was not only causing her depression, but was also contributing to her illness, if not actually causing it. Her worry caused so much stress in her body that her immune system could not do its job of keeping her well. Yet even the awareness that her worry was causing her depression and possibly even her illness did not stop Carole from worrying. She was addicted to it. She was unconsciously addicted to the sense of control that worry gave her.

I understood this well because I come from a long line of worriers. My grandmother’s whole life was about worrying. She lived with us as I was growing up and I don’t remember ever seeing her without a look of worry on her face. Same with my mother – constant worry. Of course, I picked up on it and also became a worrier. However, unlike my mother and grandmother, who worried daily until the day they died, I decided I didn’t want to live that way. The turning point came for me the day my husband and I were going to the beach and I started to worry that the house would burn down and my children would die. I became so upset from the worry that we had to turn around and come home. I knew then that I had to do something about it.

As I started to examine the cause of worry, I realized that worriers believe that worry will stop bad things from happening. My mother worried her whole life and none of the bad things she worried about ever happened. She concluded that nothing bad happened because she worried! She really believed that she could control things with her worry. My father, however, never worried about anything, and nothing bad ever happened to him either. My mother believed that nothing bad happened to my father because of her worry! She really believed until the day she died (from heart problems that may have been due to her constant worry) that if she stopped worrying, everything would fall apart. My father is still alive at 92, even without her worrying about him!

It is not easy to stop worrying when you have been practicing worrying for most of your life. In order for me to stop worrying, I needed to recognize that the belief that worry has control over outcomes is a complete illusion. I needed to see that, not only is worry a waste of time, but that it can have grave negative consequences on health and well-being. Once I understood this, I was able to notice the stomach clenching that occurred whenever I worried and stop the thought that was causing the stress.

Carole is in the process of learning this. She sees that her worry makes her feel very anxious and depressed. She sees that when she doesn’t worry, she is not nearly as fatigued as when she allows her addiction to worry to take over. She sees that when she stays in the moment rather than projecting into the future, she feels much better. The key for Carole in stopping worrying is in accepting that worry does not give her control.

Giving up the illusion of control that worry gives us not easy for anyone who worries. Yet there is an interesting paradox regarding worry. I have found that when I am in the present moment, I have a much better chance of making choices that support my highest good than when I’m stuck thinking about the future. Rather than giving us control, worry prevents us from being present enough to make loving choices for ourselves and others. Worrying actually ends up giving us less control rather than more!