Coaching Employees for Performance and Career Development May 4, 2017

Disclosures We have no relevant financial relationships to disclose.

Objectives Understand the roles of manager, mentor and coach Identify your coaching opportunities Use a 4-step model to practice coaching

What role are you playing? Coach Client has all of the knowledge and experience to meet his or her goal Mentor Client and mentor have knowledge and experience to meet client’s goal Manager Employee works with manager to meet established goal AMY: (Elaborate on differences between roles and common misperceptions) The Manager role is one of providing direction; managing to a metric; getting updated on a project; assisting with obstacles; being informed and included about what’s going on. The Coaching role is one in which employee and manager work together to consider ideas and resolve problems. Instead of providing answers, the Coach asks questions to help the employee explore options. The Mentor role is a blend of the two. You might have experiences that the other person (who may or may not report to you) can learn from. There’s a time and a place for each of these roles. Sometimes you might fill one role, sometimes another; and at times you might fill all three roles within the same conversation! For example: For instance, you might begin in the manager role during a one-on-one, as your direct report summarizes the status of a project. You might switch to Coach – when the above conversation moves into a problem such as “I’m having trouble working with this person.” Here is your opportunity–instead of telling the employee what to do—to start asking questions that help your employee think through the situation—ideally, coming up with their OWN ideas… ….and then your role might switch back to Manager as you move on to the next item, or if you find the situation entails something you need to take on to resolve. You can look at it as merely a shift in the conversation.

Performance v. Behavior Coaching opportunities can be either performance- or behavior-based, and you can address both of these in any given day. Of the two, behavior-based issues can be the most challenging….when an employee's performance is good but HOW they go about it is causing problems. Amy shares her story on behavior issue…

Scenario- set up We’re going to give you 30 seconds to consider a situation that you yourself would like to receive coaching on… Consider a conversation (performance OR behavior-based) that you need to have with someone….or one you would in retrospect have liked to have managed differently…or maybe even a situation that you are facing and you’d like to receive some coaching on it yourself. Think of a challenging issue

4-Step Coaching Model Objective Impact Possibilities Action Plan 1 2 3 SUSAN: Being an on-the-fly coach isn’t difficult. It simply requires patience, active listening, and asking questions to help a person clarify the issue, examine it objectively, and evaluate a solution that will work for them. To illustrate, we’re going to show you a model that professional coaches often use...the acronym is the GROW model, and it stands for the four parts to a coaching conversation…. (explain) Your job as the coach is to help the other person move past their story ….by looking side-by-side at the problem and allowing them to come up with their own solutions. You do this by asking questions such as these…

Sample questions: Objective What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to change? How will you know when you’ve reached your goal? What result are you trying to achieve? Is this the best outcome you can imagine or is there something greater? The first step is to help the employee verbalize their GOAL by asking questions like this… Keep it in positive language! Consideration: is it SMART Does it work within the context of your organization

Sample questions: Impact What is the result of this? How can you learn what you need to know about this? What are the benefits of this problem? What are you responsible for here? What steps have you already taken? Current state analysis Next, you ask a question or two that help the person consider their reality from a different perspective. You see, as human beings, when we encounter a problem we tend to get ‘stuck in our story.’ Your job is to move the person away from their story (the present state) and toward a solution (the future state). (For example, if a person is struggling with feeling stressed and overwhelmed, you could ask, “ What does it look like when things are going smoothly?” ) The key here is to ask the question, then LISTEN…and allow the other person time to reflect and respond thoughtfully, without judgment.

Sample questions: Possibilities What will you have to give up in order to make room for your goal? What do you need in order to succeed here? What’s stopping you from taking action? What rules do you have that are getting in the way? How can you turn this around and have better results next time? You then ask one or two questions that will help the person think through possibilities, including possible obstacles, and how to manage them.

Sample questions: Action Plan What are you willing to commit to here? Which step could you take right now that would make the biggest difference? When will you commit to taking that step? What’s next for you? The last step is just that…a commitment to action and the next step forward. This is when you might schedule a time to check back in with the person to see how it’s going.

A little earlier we asked you to think of a conversation that you need to have or a situation you’re facing that you’d like to receive coaching on. Remember it can be about a behavioral issue, a relationship, a performance situation, or a task….something relatively simple that can be discussed in a 7-minute coaching session.

Take turns being the coach/mentee Coaching Exercise Take turns being the coach/mentee 7 minutes each 1 minute transition Setup exercise, announce time, etc. We move through audience and be available to help. Debrief with questions such as: How many of you found it hard to stay in coaching mode and not problem-solve for them? How many of you found it hard to figure out questions to ask? What was your biggest takeaway? …etc….

What are you trying to accomplish? What would you like to see happen? Objective What are you trying to accomplish? What would you like to see happen? Possibilities What do you need to do in order to succeed? What is stopping you from taking action? Impact How will you know when you’ve accomplished your goal? What will success look like? Action plan What are you willing to commit to? What is your very next step?

Questions? Ask them to trade business cards with coaching partner and encourage them to call their ‘coaching buddy’ for ideas, practice and feedback before they enter into their next real-life coaching session.