Letter from the Editor
January is about change. Many companies have closed the books on their fiscal year and are strategizing plans for great things in 2007. Individuals use the new year to reflect on changes they would like to make in the coming 12 months.
Anyone who tells you that they love change is fooling only himself. It’s human nature to avoid change and – when forced – to change as little as possible. We are truly creatures of habit.
At the same time, change is important. We want to improve our health, we want to increase our skills or credentials, we want to advance our career, etc. Achievement of goals requires change.
To increase the likelihood that you will reach your goals, there are a number of things you can do:
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Make the goal specific. “Lose 20 pounds by June” is a lot more specific than “lose weight.” Progress towards specific goals is more easily measured.
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Make your goals public. Tell your friends your goals and they will regularly inquire how you’re progressing.
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Find a partner or coach. The most common reason for not accomplishing goals is discipline/follow-through. With a friend or coach to help you, your chances for successfully reaching your goals improve dramatically.
In this newsletter, we feature two types of coaching: developmental coaching and behavioral coaching. Developmental coaching helps people improve specific, typically job-related skills. Developmental coaching helps sales professionals improve their closing skills or customer service professionals process applications more quickly and accurately. Behavioral coaching, according to our new friend, Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, helps executives identify and address behaviors that tend to hold them back from being more effective; these skills tend to focus on interpersonal skills.
I hope you find both types of coaching useful for you and your organizations as you look to 2007 to accomplish great things!
Terry
Developmental Coaching – Entelechy Focuses on the Front-Line
If you wish to improve the skills of your employees, you must plan to observe them (or their results) 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!
What Employees Expect
According to a variety of studies, many employees – good employees – don’t feel that they receive the coaching they need to improve performance. After surveying 2,600 US workers, New York-based Mercer Human Resource Consulting (April 2003) found that:
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Only one-fourth of employees indicated that their managers coach them to improve performance.
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Forty-two percent say that their manager gives them regular feedback on their performance.
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Just 29% say that they are rewarded when they do a good job.
Towers Perrin, another New York-based consulting firm, concluded from surveying 35,000 U.S. workers that only one-fifth of workers are highly engaged in their jobs. While an equal amount of surveyed workers are disengaged in their work, Towers Perrin suggests that the middle three-fifths – “the massive middle” – offers the best opportunity for managers and supervisors. “Strengthening
this group’s level of engagement may be the most critical task virtually every employer faces today.”
Engagement, recognition, feedback, opportunity for development and
contribution - coaching offers supervisors and managers a simple and highly effective mechanism for increasing morale, productivity, performance, and engagement.
Entelechy’s Coaching Model
Coaching 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
a problem solving model.
The Coaching Model is based on several important principles:
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There are two primary goals to coaching:
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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.
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Coaching is a planned development process and should not be a surprise.
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The way you open the conversation sets the tone for what will follow.
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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:
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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.
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Reinforces good behavior and ease into the coaching session.
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Builds self-esteem.
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Ending the coaching session with a discussion of areas for development ensures
the coachee is focusing on those areas.
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Always give the coachee a chance to self-assess before you offer your insights. Encouraging self-assessment is positive for several reasons:
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It encourages improvement even when you are not coaching.
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It allows you to determine why the employee may not be performing as desired; they may not know that they’re doing something incorrectly.
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It builds self-esteem.
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It increases the chances that behavior will change.
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Reinforce correct self-assessment.
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Defer or redirect inappropriate or incorrect self-assessment.
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We focus coaching on only two strengths and two areas for development. Limiting the discussion is important and accomplishes the following:
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Increases the coachee’s ability to reach proficiency.
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Focuses on the most important issues.
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Other issues can be addressed after some progress has been made on the most important issues first.
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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 Process
Coaching is a one-to-one mutual conversation that follows a predictable process. The benefits of using this model include:
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 interview ever” and you thought that the interview 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 notice the client’s reaction when you made that joke about the old man? That’s right, he seemed a bit embarrassed.”
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
have 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 interview go even better.”
Follow these four steps to help your employees and colleagues increase their performance.
When Coaching is NOT the Best Solution
Coaching is appropriate for employees who are willing – or even eager – to develop a particular skill. If an employee is not willing to develop a skill, that person is not yet a coaching candidate.
Coaching works best when there exists an authentic, supportive relationship between coach and coachee. If the employee perceives the manager as manipulating, lacking in credibility, or otherwise unsupportive, coaching will not work.
Coaching is an inefficient method of sharing information or giving direction. If an employee needs information or direction (because they don’t know how to do something), coaching – while sometimes
effective – is most often an inefficient way to help the employee in these cases. Coaching helps develop SKILLS. Coaching is predicated on the belief that most employees know many tenets of core business skills. (Most workers, for example, know HOW to effectively communicate with others. They may not actually demonstrate that they know how, but when asked, they usually can rattle off the core behaviors.) Employees need support and guidance in putting what they know into practice. Not surprisingly, these business skills – negotiation, interviewing, problem solving, prioritizing tasks, workload management, time management, delegation, supervision, leadership, etc. – comprise the foundation of what we do.
Summary
Entelechy’s coaching model, when used consistently over time will result in a stronger employee-coach relationship, employees who can self-assess (and even coach themselves!), and increased productivity.
While one-fifth of employees may not need coaching since they’re already charged up about their work and confident in all of their abilities AND another fifth of employees are simply not ready for coaching since they’re so disengaged from their work, coaching can be used to improve the productivity and morale of “the massive middle” of your employee base.
This information comes from Coaching for Performance, a module in Entelechy’s
High Performance Management training. Check out this module as well as our 40 other modules, training tools, and eGuides at
www.unlockit.com.
Behavioral Coaching – Goldsmith Focuses on Executives
 As faithful readers of
The Key know, I have had the opportunity to interview and work with some of the world’s top leaders and management gurus, from Tom Peters to Sir Richard Branson, from Sherron Watkins (Enron whistleblower) to General Tommy Franks, and from Warren Bennis to Henry Mintzberg.
Recently, I had the opportunity to create training materials for Marshall Goldsmith, coach to scores of successful executives, author or co-author of 22 books on coaching and leadership, and one of the most influential practitioners in the history of leadership development according to
BusinessWeek. His most recent book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You
There, co-authored with Mark Reiter, soared to the top of Amazon.com’s Business Book list in the week it was published and, as of this writing, remains in the #1 position.
According to Dr. Goldsmith:
The corporate world is filled with executives, men and women who have worked hard for years to reach the upper levels of management. They’re intelligent, skilled, and even charismatic. But only a handful of them will ever reach the pinnacle and subtle nuances make all the difference. These are small “transactional flaws” performed by one person against another (as simple as not saying thank you enough), which lead to negative perceptions that can hold any executive back.
Undoubtedly, leadership development is one of the most important activities that executives can do to increase the long-term viability and growth of their organization. The deeper the leadership bench, the more stable the company and the more potential the company has for change and growth. Additionally, by consciously focusing on the development of high potential leaders, the executive – and the company – is more likely to retain this talent.
However, there’s a paradox that occurs the higher one goes in the organization as it relates to development: the more successful the individual, the more difficult it is for the individual to change. Some of it is, as Dr. Goldsmith puts it, “delusional.” The thought process for many successful people goes like this: I am successful. I behave in certain ways. Therefore, my behavior must account for my success. For many executives, they have succeeded to this point
in spite of some of these behaviors.
Additionally, the higher individuals advance in the organization, it becomes increasingly less likely that someone will tell them that their behaviors are inhibiting their continued success. Importantly, due to our inaccurate self-perceptions, we may be leaving damaged relationships in our wake without even knowing it.
In a recent interview, Dr. Goldsmith summarizes the challenge facing successful people as it relates to coaching:
The whole area of coaching is about improving. Coaching used to be perceived as something you did to "fix" poor performers. I think coaching should also be used to help top performers get even better!
One reason that it is hard for successful people to change is that successful people are (in a positive way) delusional. We consistently over-rate ourselves relative to our successful peers.
The "good news" is that this causes us to try more things. The "bad news" is that we can have trouble in hearing negative feedback. Successful people often confuse correlation with causality. We are all successful because of many things and in spite of others!
Successful people have a huge need for self-determination, which means that if we don't feel that we are personally committed to our own behavior change, we (typically) won't do it.
Another factor is that successful people tend to accept advice only from other people they see as successful. All this makes getting successful people to change very challenging.
The first step is a diagnostic process that asks, "What are desired behaviors for a leader in this position?" Before we get anyone to change his/her behavior, we have to figure out what the desired behaviors are.
The answer to this first question leads to a second, "Who are the key stakeholders around the person being coached?" We need to find out how the key stakeholders view the person relative to those key behaviors. Then we have to identify the most important, highest leverage, opportunities for improvement.
I spend quite a bit of time getting buy-in before the process begins. It is also very important for the person being coached to understand that the behavior we are trying to change is the most important behavior for high leverage impact. It is not just some randomly picked low scoring behavior.
Executives being coached should not just say, "I guess I should get better at that." They have to answer the question, "If I get better at this key behavior, is it going to make a real difference in the company?"
The secret to successful change – and the  secret to successful coaching – is to pick the one behavior that is going to make the biggest positive difference in your life. Talk to the most important people in your life and involve them in helping you change that behavior. Ask them to give you ideas for the future. Listen to their ideas. Then follow up with them on a regular basis. If you do this, no matter how successful you currently are, you can get better!
The above information comes from work Entelechy performed for Linkage, Inc. for their 2007 Excellence in Management & Leadership Series – satellite broadcasts featuring the world’s greatest leaders and management gurus. For more information, check out
http://www.linkageinc.com/...default.aspx. If you’d like Entelechy to help YOU create engaging and effective training materials, contact us!
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Terence Traut, President of Entelechy "unlocking potential"
ttraut@unlockit.com
phone: 603-424-1237
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