Performance Management Skills

9.1.

Coaching Coaching is a collaborative, ongoing process in which the manager interacts with his or her employees and takes an active role and interest in their performance. In general, coaching involves directing, motivating, and rewarding employee behavior. Coaching is a day-to-day function that involves observing performance, complimenting good work, and helping to correct and improve any performance that does not meet expectations and standards. Coaching is also concerned with long-term performance and involves ensuring that the developmental plan is being achieved. Being a coach thus is similar to serving as a consultant and, for coaching to be successful, a coach must establish a helping relationship. Establishing this helping and trusting relationship is particularly important when the supervisor and subordinate do not share similar cultural backgrounds, as is often the case with expatriates or when implementing global performance management systems.  In such situations, a helping and trusting relationship allows for what is labeled cultural transvergence in performance management, which means that cultural differences are discussed openly, and alternate practices, which enhance individual and team performance, are implemented.

Coaching is a pervasive organizational activity and, since the mid 1990s, there has been an explosion of interest in coaching. Specifically, the first scholarly article on coaching was published in 1955, and between then and December 2005, 393 articles have been published on the topic. Increased interest in recent years is evidenced by the fact that, of the total of 393 articles, 318 have been published since 1996. Although many theories on coaching exist, there are four guiding principles that provide a good framework for understanding successful coaching :
1.	A good coaching relationship is essential.  For coaching to work, it is imperative that the relationship between the coach and the employee be trusting and collaborative. As noted by Farr and Jacobs, the “collective trust” of all stakeholders in the process is necessary. To achieve this type of relationship, first the coach must listen in order to understand. In other words, the coach needs to try to walk in the employee’s shoes and view the job and organization from his or her perspective. Second, the coach needs to search for positive aspects of the employee because this is likely to lead to a better understanding and acceptance of the employee. Third, the coach needs to understand that coaching is not something done to the employee but done with the employee. Overall, the manager needs to coach with empathy and compassion. Such compassionate coaching will help develop a good relationship with the employee. In addition, there is an important personal benefit for the coach. This type of compassionate coaching has the potential to serve as an antidote to the chronic stress experienced by many managers. It has been argued that this type of coaching can ameliorate stress because the experience of compassion elicits responses within the human body that arouse the parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS), which can help mitigate stress.
2.	The employee is the source and director of change.  The coach must understand that the employee is the source of change and self-growth. After all, the purpose of coaching is to change employee behavior and set a direction for what the employee will do differently in the future. This type of change will not happen if the employee is not in the driver’s seat. Accordingly, the coach needs to facilitate the employee’s setting the agenda, goals, and direction.
3.	The employee is whole and unique.  The coach must understand that each employee is a unique individual with several job-related and job-unrelated identities (e.g., computer network specialist, father, skier) and a unique personal history. The coach must try to create a whole, complete, and rich picture of the employee. It will be beneficial if the coach has knowledge of the employee’s life and can help the employee connect his life and work experiences in meaningful ways.
4.	The coach is the facilitator of the employee’s growth.  The coach’s main role is one of facilitation. A coach must direct the process and help with the content (e.g., of a developmental plan) but not take control of these issues. The coach needs to maintain an attitude of exploration; help expand the employee’s awareness of strengths, resources, and challenges; and facilitate goal setting
	In more specific terms, coaching involves the following functions :
	-	Giving advice to help employees improve their performance. In other words, coaching involves not only describing what needs to be done but also how things need to be done. Coaching is concerned with both results and behaviors.
	-	Providing employees with guidance so that employees can develop their skills and knowledge appropriately. Coaching involves providing information both about the skills and knowledge that are required to do the work correctly and information about how the employee can acquire these skills and knowledge.
	-	Providing employees support and being there only when the manager is needed. Coaching involves being there when the employee needs help, but it also involves not monitoring and controlling an employee’s every move. In the end, coaching is about facilitation. The responsibility for improving performance ultimately rests on the shoulders of the employee.
	-	Giving employees confidence that will enable them to enhance their performance continuously and to increase their sense of responsibility for managing their own performance. Coaching involves giving positive feedback that allows employees to feel confident about what they do, but it also involves giving feedback on things that can be improved.
	-	Helping employees gain greater competence by guiding them toward acquiring more knowledge and sharpening the skills that can prepare them for more complex tasks and higher-level positions. Coaching involves a consideration of both Short term and long-term objectives, including how the employee can benefit from acquiring new skills and knowledge that could be useful in future positions and in novel tasks.

Taking Coaching Seriously at Becton, Dickinson, and Company A coaching culture and leadership development are viewed as competitive strengths at Becton, Dickinson, and Company (BD, http://www.bd.com). The U.S.-based company manufactures and sells medical supplies, devices, laboratory instruments, antibodies, reagents, and diagnostic products to Health care organizations, clinical laboratories, private industry, and the public. The coaching culture at BD includes the following points, as noted by Joseph Toto, the company’s director of leadership development and learning :
1.	We place high expectations on corporate leaders to model coaching as a productive and effective way to improve performance.
2.	We expect leaders at all management levels to be coached as well as to coach the development of others.
3.	We establish coaching as a norm. Leaders must view coaching and development as some of the key responsibilities and deliverables in their roles.
Part of the company’s training program includes developing skills through peer coaching and building management skills through peer interaction, support, and guidance. The training sessions emphasize several skills, including listening, asking facilitating and open-ended questions, sharing experiences, and challenging assumptions or discussing actions that might not be productive in the view of the coach. Training also involves self-assessment of strengths and weaknesses and identifying behaviors that would assist leaders in any given circumstance in which they might find themselves as managers in the company. In summary, BD has utilized training programs to develop and reinforcea coaching culture. This culture is credited with developing leaders to provide direction to others in a constantly changing business environment.

Based on this list of the various functions of coaching, it is evident that coaching requires a lot of effort from the managers. For example, consider the case of NCCI Holdings, Inc., a company based in Boca Raton, Florida, that manages the largest database of workers’ compensation insurance information in the United States (www.ncci.com). NCCI analyzes industry trends, prepares workers’ compensation insurance rate recommendations, assists in pricing proposed legislation, and provides a variety of data products to maintain a healthy workers’ compensation system and reduce the frequency of employee injuries. At NCCI Holdings, supervisors undergo extensive coaching training, including learning how to listen and how to be empathic. Managers also attend monthly roundtables where they can learn from one other’s coaching experiences. At these roundtables, managers can solicit feedback from other managers regarding their own coaching performance.

Coaching helps turn feedback into results. For this to happen, coaches need to engage in the following :

-	Establish development objectives.  The manager works jointly with the employees in creating the developmental plan and its objectives.
-	Communicate effectively.  The manager maintains regular and clear communication with employees about their performance, including both behaviors and results.
-	Motivate employees.  Managers must reward positive performance. When positive performance is rewarded, employees are motivated to repeat the same level of positive performance in the future
-	Document performance.  Managers observe employee behaviors and results. Evidence must be gathered regarding instances of good and poor performance.
-	Give feedback.  Managers measure employee performance and progress toward goals. They praise good performance and point out instances of substandard performance. Managers also help employees avoid poor performance in the future.
-	Diagnose performance problems.  Managers must listen to employees and gather information to determine whether performance deficiencies are the result of a lack of knowledge and skills, abilities, or motivation or whether they stem from situational factors beyond the control of the employee. Diagnosing performance problems is important because such a diagnosis dictates whether the course of action should be, for example, providing the employee with resources so that she can acquire more knowledge and skills or addressing contextual issues that may be beyond the control of the employee (e.g., the employee is usually late in delivering the product because he receives the parts too late).
-	Develop employees.  Managers provide financial support and resources for employee development (e.g., funding training, allowing time away from the job for developmental activities) by helping employees plan for the future and by giving challenging assignments that force employees to learn new things.

Not all coaches perform all the coaching functions by engaging in all of the behaviors described here. Managers who do so, of course, are highly effective. In fact, some have become legendary leaders. Consider Table 9.1, which summarizes the critical functions served by coaching and the behaviors coaches used to perform these functions. For example, take the case of Jack Welch who was extremely dedicated to developing his employees by engaging in several of the coaching behaviors described here when he was CEO of General Electric (GE). To get involved with his employees, Welch spoke during a class held at a three-week developmental course for GE’s high-potential managers. Over the course of his career, he attended more than 750 of these classes, engaging over 15,000 GE managers and executives. During these presentations, he expected to answer hard questions, and he communicated honestly and candidly with his employees. After the class, he invited all the participants to talk with him after the course. In addition to attending these sessions, he held meetings with his top 500 executives every January. Although Welch did not engage in formal coaching, he used the opportunities to communicate his expectations and receive feedback from the various business groups at GE.

Welch also conducted formal performance reviews in which he engaged in several of the behaviors included in Table 9.1, including establishing developmental objectives, motivating employees, documenting performance, giving feedback, and diagnosing performance problems. He set performance targets and monitored them throughout the year. Each year the operating heads of GE’s 12 businesses received individual two page, handwritten notes about their performance. Welch attached the previous year’s comments to the new reviews with comments in the margin about the progress made by the individual managers toward his goal or the work that he still needed to do to reach the goal. Then, he distributed bonuses and reiterated the goals for the upcoming year. This process cascaded throughout the organization, as other operating heads engaged in the same performance review discussions with their subordinates.

Table 9.1 Coaching

Major Functions	Key Behaviors
Give advice	Establish developmental objectives
Provide guidance	Communicate effectively
Give support	Motivate employees
Give confidence	Document performance
Promote greater competence	Give feedback
	Diagnose performance problems
	Develop employees

Another example of Welch’s coaching behaviors occurred after he had heard customer complaints about a specific product. Welch charged the manager of the division with improving the productivity of that product fourfold. The manager sent Welch detailed weekly reports over the course of the next four years. Welch would send the reports back every three or four weeks with comments congratulating successes or pointing out areas in which the manager needed to improve. The manager stated that the fact that the CEO took the time to read his reports each week and send back comments motivated him to reach the lofty goal that Welch had set for him.

In addition to this, Jack Welch took the time to recognize hourly workers and managers who impressed him. For example, after one high-ranking leader turned down a promotion and transfer because he did not want his daughter to change schools, Welch sent him a personal note stating that he admired the man for many reasons and that he appreciated his decision to put his family first. The employee explained later that this incident proved that Welch cared about him both as a person and as an employee.

In short, Jack Welch was a legendary leader who developed his employees by setting expectations, communicating clearly, documenting and diagnosing performance, motivating and rewarding his employees, and taking an interest in their personal development. In fact, he engaged in virtually all the behaviors and performed most of the coaching functions listed in Table 9.1. How does Jack Welch compare to the CEO of your current company or to a CEO you have known or heard about?

We can see that Welch was an extremely effective coach. In general, however, how do we know whether a manager is doing a good job of coaching her employees? From a results point of view, we could simply measure how many of a manager’s employees go on to become successful on their own. But, as in the case of evaluating performance in general, we should also consider behaviors in evaluating coaching performance. Consider the good coach questionnaire included in Table 9.2. If you are or have been in a management position, answer the questions about yourself; otherwise, think about your current or latest supervisor or someone you know. To how many of these questions can you answer “yes”? To how many would you answer “no”? Overall, given your responses, what is the evaluation of this person (yourself or someone else) as a coach from a behavioral point of view?

Table 9.2 The Good Coach Questionnaire

1.	Do you listen to your employees?
2.	Do you understand the individual needs of your employees?
3.	Do you encourage employees to express their feelings openly?
4.	Do you provide your employees with tangible and intangible support for development?
5.	Do your employees know your expectations about their performance?
6.	Do you encourage open and honest discussions and problem solving?
7.	Do you help your employees create action plans that will solve problems and create changes when needed?
8.	Do you help your employees explore potential areas of growth and development?

 

9.2.

Coaching Style

A manager’s personality and behavioral preferences are more likely to influence his or her coaching style. There are four main coaching styles: driver, persuader, amiable, and analyzer. First, coaches can adopt a driving style in which they tell the employee being coached what to do. Assume that the coach wants to provide guidance regarding how to deal with a customer. In this situation, the preference for a driver is to say to the employee, “You must talk to the customer in this way.” Such coaches are assertive, speak quickly and often firmly, usually talk about tasks and facts, are not very expressive, and expose a narrow range of personal feelings to others. Second, coaches can use a persuading style in which they try to sell what they want the employee to do. Someone who is a persuader would try to explain to the employee why it is beneficial for the organization as well as for the employee himself to talk to a customer in a specific way. Like drivers, persuaders are assertive, but they tend to use expansive body gestures, talk more about people and relationships, and expose others to a broad range of personal feelings. Third, other coaches may adopt an amiable style and want everyone to be happy. Such coaches are likely to be more subjective than objective and direct employees to talk to customers in a certain way because it “feels” like the right thing to do or because the employee feels it is the right way to do it. Such coaches tend not to be very assertive and to speak deliberately and pause often, seldom interrupt others, and make many conditional statements. Finally, coaches may have a preference for analyzing performance in a logical and systematic way and then follow rules and procedures when providing a recommendation. To use the same example, such analyzer coaches may tell employees to talk to a customer in a specific way “because this is what the manual says.” Analyzers, then, are not very assertive but, like drivers, are likely to talk about tasks and facts rather than personal feelings. Which of these four styles is best? Are drivers, persuaders, amiable coaches, or analyzers most effective? The answer is that no style is necessarily superior to the others. Good coaching should be seen as a learning opportunity and as an opportunity to set clear goals and delegate action. Coaching involves sometimes providing direction, sometimes persuading employees how to do things a certain way, sometimes showing empathy and creating positive effects, and sometimes paying close attention to established rules and procedures. One thing is for sure, however : an exclusive emphasis on one of these four styles is not likely to help employees develop and grow. Ineffective coaches stick to one style only and cannot adapt to use any of the other styles. On the other hand, adaptive coaches who are able to adjust their style according to an employee’s needs are most effective. In fact, 56% of participants in a survey of employees who had a coach at work reported that coaching was not helping them because there was a mismatch between coaching style and employee need.15 In sum, a combination of styles is needed.

9.3.

Coaching Process

We have already discussed many of the components of this process in previous chapters. The first step involves setting developmental goals. These developmental goals are a key component of the developmental plan. These goals must be reasonable, attainable, and derived from a careful analysis of the areas in which an employee needs to improve. In addition, goals should take into account both short and long term career objectives.