Kris Koonar asked:
In the recent times of cutthroat competition, almost all businesses demand their managers to double up as coaches and managers. It is generally believed that coaching delivers substantial assistance to both, the employees as well as the organization as a whole. It has been repeatedly observed that performance coaching by managers is very much in demand; however the managers and the team leaders are not given appropriate training to coach the workers efficiently. Entrepreneurs need to realize that in order for the managers to perform well and deliver significant performance, they need to make sure that the line managers are equipped with the latest, up-to-date training.
Due to insufficient investment on training line managers, organizations are facing serious bottom line consequences. Recent industrial surveys showed that managers are quite confident of their coaching abilities, but tests showed otherwise. It was revealed that manager-coaching levels were not as effective as they should be. The reason behind this was that the managers often believe that coaching comprises of simply providing instructional feedback on the possible solutions for any given problem. On the other hand, workers actually require the support in the form of advanced learning and developmental tools, along with a self-coaching approach to achieve the desired level of performance.
Managers are often under the impression that the performance training provided by them is actually affecting the performance of the team. However, in reality technical skills learnt via training hardly affects 20% of the performance of the workers. Personal skills like the judgement power of the worker, efficacy level, inventiveness and concentration contribute far more, by as much as 80% to his routine work performance. Very few managers or leaders have the psychological insight to understand their own behavior, let alone positively change behavioral patterns of other people.
Tools and methodology for performance coaching:
If a manager really wants to make a difference to the skill and performance level of his workers, then he needs to understand the personal skills of a worker and how it is affecting his technical skills. For creating a permanent performance change strategy, a manager has to first understand the worker behavioral patterns.
Performance coaching and Executive coaching are two different things:
Performance coaching can be categorized as directive coaching, while executive coaching is a non-directive coaching. A directive coaching style is the one where the manager takes on the role of a coach sometimes and teaches, instructs, gives advice, offers guidance and feedback. In a non-directive coaching style, the coach helps the workers to deal with and find solutions to their problems by themselves.
Performance coaching has not changed much even after a decade:
It is unfortunate but true that when the managers are trained using old manuals, the new knowledge leads to more confusion and myth instead of clarity on a particular topic. The traditional coaching method also works a lot on assumptions. For instance, they address only a single issue at a time and assume that the method will work for every employee.
The benefit in staying ahead of swiftly expanding process of performance coaching:
It is mandatory that a manager database should always be expanded with evidence-based principles and only the best practices.
Need for giving the managers cutting-edge training:
If the organization really desires improvement, it should equip the managers and coaches with industry proven processes, tools and skills.