What is Performance Coaching?
Sharon Feltham, Excellerate
Confused about Coaching?
As empowerment, leadership and teamwork sweep away the old command and control style of the past, more and more organizations are introducing coaching in one form or another. Some hire external coaches for top executives while others use coaching as part of a comprehensive development strategy where leaders at all levels are expected to coach their employees and teams.
In other companies coaching is a less formal process. There are managers who dedicate time to coaching, while others reserve their coaching for the non-performing employee. And then there’s sports coaching, business coaching, life coaching and success coaching (to name just a few). Coaching language, labels, practices and models vary widely. It all adds to the general coaching confusion.
So what exactly is coaching? What is its place within a business context and where does coaching fit within a manager’s role.
Defining Performance Coaching
Coaching isn’t anything new. One of the earliest studies (Gorby 1937) described how older employees coached newer employees in reducing waste in order to increase profit and maximise employee bonuses as part of a profit sharing program. Bigelow (1938) discussed coaching by sales managers as a means of improving sales training. Hayden (1955) argued that follow-up coaching was an effective way to improve performance appraisals, and Mahler (1964) noted that most organisations have difficulties in getting their managers to be effective coaches.
“A comprehensive communication process in which the coach provides performance feedback to the coachee. The coach’s intention is to help people enhance their effectiveness.” (Crane 1999)
You may be familiar with a more commonly used definition from John Whitmore, a well-respected and known expert who introduced coaching to the business world in the 1990’s.
“Unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them”
These definitions describe the common elements of coaching as a continuous process to improve performance by changing behaviours though personal insight, communication, guidance and support. This differentiates coaching from other forms of development, such as training, counselling and mentoring.
| Counselling |
Coaching |
| Counselling as therapy seeks to explore and resolve underlying personal issues |
Coaching emphasises practical issues such as goal setting and achieving results within timeframes |
| Counselling in the workplaces tends to emphasise the problems involved with not meeting a required standard |
Coaching is proactive, it aims to identify and solve problems before they arise. It emphasises empowerment and strengths and how the employee can leverage these to grow and develop |
| Counselling is needs based and can therefore be event based |
Coaching involves ongoing continuous development |
Coaching and mentoring share many similarities and while it is accepted that mentors will also coach there are key differences
| Mentoring |
Coaching |
| Mentors tend to be recognized experts within a particular field or industry |
Coaches are not experts, but guides who provide the necessary resources to enable others to meet their stated goals |
| Mentors tend to represent the standards, values and vision of the organization |
Coaching explores the individual’s values to align these with the organizations to enhance performance and advancement |
| Mentors providing advice, direction and guidance drawing more from their past experience and successes |
Coaching draws the solutions from the coachee, based on the person's unique way of interpreting how to contribute in a particular situation. |
Training and coaching share a similar goal however there are also key differences that set them apart.
|
Training
|
Coaching
|
| The trainer is the subject matter expert |
Again coaches are not experts but guides who provide support to enable others to develop on the job |
| Transfer of new skills and knowledge e.g. change in procedures, a new system or a new role |
Coaching helps with fine-tuning and developing skills. It can be highly effective when combined with training to ensure skills are transferred to the work environment. |
| Training programmes are often generic with standardised content. There is little room to accommodate the often wide range of an individuals existing knowledge and skills |
Coaching is just in time learning and development focusing on individual needs as required. |
Performance coaching produces substantial results – on many levels.
Many organizations are investing more in coaching because they’ve realised it can really make a difference, not only to the performance of executives, managers, high potential professionals, but it leads to real business results as well.For example:
Increased efficiency and productivity
Improved levels of customer satisfaction
Increased levels of staff commitment, job satisfaction and retention
Decreased levels of stress, tension and absenteeism
While most of the research into coaching reports on the benefits to organization, (which makes sense, as in most instances it's the organization that’s paying) there are significant benefits for managers and employees.
Performance Coaching is powerful because it helps us to eliminate obstacles, to focus on what can be done. This is why managers who coach effectively influence positive change and in doing so experience breakthrough performance on every level: personally and professionally, for their employees, teams and their organization.
There have been many more studies since however even this early research provides us with insight into what coaching is, how it has been used within organisations, the connection between coaching, managers and their direct reports, and its emphasis on improving an employee's on job performance. The following definitions capture these characteristics much more succinctly:
|
Benefits to Managers
|
Benefits to Coachees
|
- Coaching builds rapport and strengthens relationships with employees
- Coaching helps the manager to recognise development needs of the team as a whole
- Coaching provides information to make a more objective performance appraisal
- Coaching enables the manager to delegate with more confidence freeing up time for their own work
- Increased effectiveness in performance with improved results reflects well on the manager (and the team!)
|
- Coaching develops more confidence and competence
- Coaching opens up opportunities to acquire new skills and to demonstrate competencies at higher levels
- Increases job satisfaction through the opportunity to have more influence and involvement in their work
- A greater range of skills means greater job prospects
- Coaching develops the ability to learn how to learn, a key transferable skill
|
If coaching is so effective in delivering results for stakeholders why aren’t ALL organisations and their managers coaching?
Good question! Almost everyone acknowledges how effective it can be yet many managers will also admit how difficult it can be to get started and then to keep going. Let's look at four of the most common obstacles I've come across in my conversations with managers.
"I have to be an Expert to Coach"
I have met many leaders who have told me they can't coach "specialist" team members because they know very little about their field of expertise. An example of this is a Project Leader responsible for a multi disciplinary team of technical experts. While the reality is that this is increasingly more common the good news is that you can coach a rocket scientist, even if you're not a quantum physicist.
Your skill as a coach is not as an expert or trainer. It is in your ability to question, listen and challenge in a non-judgmental way; to help others clarify and set goals, develop plans and strategies, guide them to overcome limiting mindsets, to support them while holding them accountable so they grow, develop and achieve real results.
"I'm not into touchyfeely stuff"
Ken Blanchard (famous for the “one minute manager”) makes a very pertinent observation: “Functional coaching (in the workplace) helps people perform, then they feel good. This way you don't have to spend time trying to make them feel good first” Performance Coaching is action oriented and results focused.
In your role as a coach you work with people (and your team) to set challenging goals, encourage them to take risks, stretch their comfort zones and to shift paradigms - which can be anything but touchyfeely. However, I wont argue with the feelgood factor that derives from satisfaction of seeing people overcoming obstacles, achieving goals and producing outstanding results.
"I don't have the time"
Performance Coaching doesn't need to be complicated. As a leader (or expert in your field) you have many opportunities to coach each day. That's the deal with "coaching in the moment". By developing a range of coaching skills you can transform everyday events into powerful coaching lessons. In doing so you will develop your people's competence and confidence to increase the overall capacity of your team. This has the positive flow on effect of reducing the demands on you as a leader. (It's that empowerment thing) It does take time to get there but it's well worth the investment.
"I don't know how"
Really? I suspect you probably know something about coaching already. If you're a parent, if you've ever helped out with a sports team or a community group, or if you're a leader then you will have developed some very real coaching skills. And you can learn. While some people appear to be naturally gifted at coaching it is a skill we can learn. Read, observe others, consider peer-to-peer coaching with a respected colleague or a group of friends. Ask your manager to coach you. Ask for specific coach training.
How to work with this:
First of all, don't let what you can't do get in the way of what you can do.
Develop your own definition of coaching.
Imagine you are explaining coaching for the first time to members in your team (Assume they will have never heard of coaching in a business sense) Anticipate some of their questions and prepare your answers to these.
Identify Your Obstacles to Coaching:
What prevents you from coaching - more often or more effectively? Are you making the most of the coaching opportunities that exist now? Identify "coaching moments". When someone says, "I cant..." instead of providing them with the answer take time to help him or her to explore options so they identify for themselves what they Can do.
Gorby, C. B. (1937). "Everyone gets a share of the profits." Factory Management & Maintenance 95: 82-83.
Bigelow, B. (1938). "Building an effective training program for field salesmen." Personnel 14: 142-150.
Hayden, S. J. (1955). "Getting better results from post-appraisal interviews." Personnel 31: 541-550.
Mahler, W. R. (1964). "Improving coaching skills." Personnel Administration 27(1): 28-33.
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