COACHING FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE: AN OVERVIEW Coaching is about bringing out the best in people. Good coaches are always interested in strengthening and empowering the people that they coach, pushing them to grow and develop, helping them become better at whatever it is they do. Just as great athletes don t necessarily make great coaches, the experiences that lead to becoming a manager, rarely prepare people to be an effective coach. Many managers create more stress in their teams than commitment. Good coaching is learned and developed, just like any other skill! Coaching is a wonderful medium for helping people make meaning out of what it is they are doing and for giving them a sense of self worth. When you take on a coaching role you re taking on a much broader role. You are deciding to manage the organization in a way that allows employees to grow and develop, not only financially, but personally. There are three characteristics common to all effective coaching: A strong developmental bias. The goal of coaching is to help people become better at whatever it is they do. Extensive personal contact. Good coaches take the time to build personal relationships with people, bearing in mind the awesome power of individual attention. Caring. Being on their side and believing in them. An employee must know and believe that you want them to succeed. People cannot be controlled. You cannot make someone perform to a certain level; they have to want to. As managers/coaches our focus is on building and maintaining commitment and commitment is something that must be inspired. People who are committed are motivated people. They work hard, they try to improve, and they will generally be healthier and happier people.
Once you decide to become a coach there are four areas that you will need to develop within yourself: 1. A conceptual framework. A way of thinking about commitment, what is it and what you can do to inspire it. 2. Knowledge and skills. Information on skills that are specific to coaching. You are definitely going to need to know how to communicate and how to manage conversations. 3. Self-awareness. The most important individual that you need to know how to manage is yourself. Being fully aware of what you are thinking and feeling and how that impacts your managing of others will become critical to your success. 4. A philosophy. You ll need to know what you believe. Your expectations and your values will be the determining factor in how you approach and coach others. Essentially, what we are doing as coaches, is managing the environment. We are trying to create an environment at the physical and psychological level that evokes and supports commitment in other people. This way of thinking about commitment has been influenced by the work of Dennis Kinlaw, in his book, Coaching for Commitment. We have developed a conceptual framework for coaching that outlines What you do, what you focus on as a coach, How you do it, essential communication skills, and the importance of self awareness, Knowing yourself. This framework is illustrated below. Philosophy Consulting Teaching Mentoring Communication Skills Clarity Confronting Know yourself How you do it What you do Recognition Results Performance Commitment Competence Expertise Awareness
W H AT Y O U D O In your role as a coach, developing commitment comes from always doing one of three things, providing clarity, increasing competence or giving recognition. Clarity The coach is the person who communicates the goals and values of the organization to his or her people. Good coaches hold a clear picture of what constitutes good performance and are able to communicate that picture so that people understand what it is that they are working towards. As a coach you are also a values shaper. It will also be your job to clarify, for your people, the values of the organization. Without clarity there can be no focus. People will only be focused if managers build clarity about the work group s purpose, and their values. Without a focus you cannot have commitment. To remain clear to people and to be functional, the goals and the values have to be communicated and reinforced in many ways, continuously. In the sporting environment, you will find that all of the great coaches are continuously communicating the values that they hold. If you want to be successful and train here you are going to have to behave this way, and train in this manner. One on one coaching is a primary strategy for being able to communicate goals because you are constantly in communication with your people. There are numerous opportunities to reinforce and to repeat primary goals and values. Competence People are committed to things they do well. To build competence, performers need knowledge, skills, and the opportunity to practice what they have learned. Trying something new requires confidence. Developing confidence in your players and ultimately in your team is one of your primary concerns. They re going to need reinforcement when they do it right and permission to make mistakes when trying something new. They need specific feedback on what they are doing right and what to do differently in the future. As a coach you will need to be familiar with concepts like the learning curve, and periodization if you re going to help people increase their level of competence. Great coaches know when people are learning new behaviors they follow a learning curve. Slow progress at the beginning, faster gains near the middle of the learning process and slow progress again at the end. The length of each phase depends on the degree of complexity of the task, the learner's ability and confidence, and, the effectiveness of the coach. Periodization in sport involves a yearly plan that identifies the training loads and needs based on when athletes need to peak. As a coach you need to have an overall plan for the year, knowing when you can push people and when it is important to back off. When workloads are really high, for example, it is not the time to introduce new learning. That s when
you want to take on a cheerleading role and be encouraging and supportive. Periodization is having that kind of awareness and consciousness around what needs to occur and at what time, in order for people to be able to do what they have to do really well. Many managers don t think of their mandate as developing people by introducing employees to increasingly difficult situations to help them grow. Coaching is a personal and powerful way of building competence because it can be timely and specific. Right in the moment you can reinforce or correct what you ve just seen, focusing specifically on what it is that person needs to learn. Recognition People work best when they believe what they do matters to someone else, especially their boss. Research on the effects of positive reinforcement shows that when people s work and efforts are appreciated, the impact is very powerful. Very little has been done to apply this research in the workplace, which is surprising, considering the phenomenal workloads that committed athletes can handle, when given a little encouragement. Recognition, if it is to be effective, has to be competent and relevant. The more specific the reinforcement, the more effective it s going to be in influencing that person s behavior. It has been said that recognition is not a one-size-fits-all concept. We must personalize reinforcement and awards if they are to have maximum effect. Catch your staff doing something right, because people respond best to the personal touch. Reinforcement builds self-esteem and confidence; being sensitive to people s self-esteem needs is just plain good business. In our opinion, recognition is best given to individuals through influence & ownership. People do not perform nearly as well when they are consistently denied any input into their job or expected to unquestionably follow orders from their superiors. There are at least three places where you can successfully give your people opportunities for input and ownership: 1. Innovation. Allowing them to present their ideas on how things could be done and which ideas get chosen. People have tremendous ideas and it is important for business leaders to acknowledge them. 2. Planning. Letting individuals help plan how things are going to roll through the organization. 3. Problem solving. Allowing employees to identify what the problems are and to research and identify possible solutions. A coaching management style is the key to extending the influence of your employees and helping them improve their performance. In a coaching conversation you can help people identify what their needs are and help them plan how they will then meet those needs. A primary strategy for giving staff the chance to influence what happens to them in their job is creating an atmosphere where employees feel that they can talk to you, the person who is responsible for their jobs.
When we coach to increase commitment, every conversation that we have with our employees is a chance to either: clarify goals, set priorities, establish the expected standards of performance, reaffirm and reinforce the groups values, hear ideas, involve people in planning or problem solving or, just to say thank you, you re doing great! H O W Y O U D O I T (Knowledge and Skills) The most obvious areas of expertise will be related to your chosen field or line of work. Football coaches should know a thing or two about football, insurance executives a thing or two about insurance, etc. This summary covers concepts and skills directly related to the act of coaching; specifically, the ability to communicate, your most important skill. If you wish to develop yourself as an effective coach, your focus should be on developing the ability to create and manage the process of communicating effectively, rather than trying to control the content of the conversation. There are two common attributes of a coaching conversation: first, the most productive coaching conversations occur one on one, and second, the focus of the conversation is on performance and performance related topics. One on one communications personalizes the conversation and focus on the needs of that particular individual. If the conversation is not aimed directly at the needs of the employee, then the manager has missed a valuable coaching opportunity. In terms of the conversation s focus being on performance, remember, it s the whole person who performs. There are no topics that should not be discussed if they affect the employee at work. In order for a coaching conversation to be successful it has to be timely and specific. The coach has to intuitively or consciously manage the conversation. This means that the coach has to be disciplined enough to initiate conversation and respond to things the employee is saying in a way that is going to avoid a knee-jerk reaction and maximize the potential for a successful conversation. Good coaches have the discipline to initiate, that is, to go forward and speak when it s really hard to speak or when the last thing they want to do is to confront the situation. Within what we are calling coaching conversations, there are four types: consulting, mentoring, teaching and confronting. Each of these four styles has a specific function. 1. In a consulting conversation you may be assisting an employee in coming to an accurate description of a problem or some insight into their behavior. The major skills required in this type of conversation are listening, probing and communicating respect. 2. In a mentoring style of communicating you are helping staff develop political savvy, helping them become sensitive to the organization s culture. You could be informing them about the politics of the company or helping them become sensitive to senior managers preferences.
3. In the teaching style, you are usually helping staff increase their level of technical competence or trying to move them to expert status. The focus may be on speeding up the employees learning pace or encouraging them to commit to continuous learning. 4. In the confronting style (usually the most difficult), you are helping the employee get clarity about performance expectations and standards. Whether you are identifying the employee s performance shortfalls or trying to get the employee to accept more difficult tasks, the focus of the coaching conversation is to help the employee develop strategies to improve their own performance. All four of the above styles have their own place and time. Sometimes confronting is the appropriate communication style for what you want to achieve, sometimes it s mentoring, teaching or consulting. Whatever the style, the intention of the communication is the same; helping the employee become better at what they do. K N O W Y O U R S E L F Philosophy Your philosophy is critical to whether you can coach and how successful a coach you will be. It is your touchstone. Your behaviour and actions will be an outgrowth of your beliefs, values and the principles you develop. Principles must be grounded in common sense. Coaching is a dance, a balancing act. It isn't black and white,neither is life, the work environment, or relationships. There are no rules, only ways of thinking about people and the workplace. There are certainly no formulas for making the most difficult decisions concerning balancing the needs of the individual and those of the group. The hard choices and judgments remain right where they always have, on the manager s shoulders. Doing the hard things is a one phrase definition of management. The hard things always involve dealing with people. Everything else, capital, equipment, resources is easy compared to people problems. Coaching is about doing the right things, and that means you have to be continuously assessing what is needed. Common sense is your best guide. Awareness Active awareness is a precondition to effective coaching. Without awareness we remain prisoners to our past successes, failures, hidden beliefs and whatever we are experiencing in any given situation. This is especially true in difficult, stressful and pressure-filled situations. Great coaches in history, like Sparky Anderson, John Wooden, Tom Landry and General Patton, all made key decisions in a calm, focused manner amidst the most heated of moments. They were not controlled by what they were experiencing. Awareness involves taking notice of the impact that situations, issues, or people are having on us and as a result, on our performance. Coaches who are actively aware notice what is happening
at the mind level, what they are experiencing at the body level and what they are feeling. They then act by using mental skills to change what they are experiencing on the inside, be it frustration, anger or a pounding heart beat, in order to coach better on the outside. Possible actions include self talk, imagery, breathing techniques, reframing, or acting as if. They choose the appropriate mental skill to help them move to where they need to be in order to coach more effectively. Taking the time to develop your mental skills will improve your performances in all stressful or challenging situations. Final Note If you are a manager and you don t care about people, you would be better off to get out of management. You can save yourself a potential heart attack, and many other people a lot of daily grief. Caring about people and their growth and development is what good coaching is all about.