How to Breakdown Performance to Build Success
What are the tiers of learning?The tiers of learning are knowledge, skills, and behavior. Each of these elements plays a role in how we learn functional requirements.
How does this apply in the business world?
A functional requirement for a customer service job may be to field incoming phone calls and provide proper information about a company’s products with a high energy, a friendly attitude, and a strong confidence.
For an employee to become successful at performing this functional requirement he or she will need to obtain a combination of the tiers of learning:
- Knowledge: product knowledge, technical attributes
- Skills: active listening,
- Behavior: motivation to help customers, attitude
In order to help employees master functional requirements, a coach must identity specifically what tier(s) of learning are in need of improvement and then create a coaching plan designed to improve on that specific area.
Back to the example, two employees are struggling to become optimally successful at fielding incoming phone calls and provide proper information about a company’s products with a high energy, a friendly attitude, and a strong confidence, one employee may have expansive knowledge of products but comes off rude and short with customers (behavior), while the other employee struggles to provide accurate and complete information about products (knowledge) however, customers consistently remark that this employee has a great attitude and is always very friendly.
If both of these employees are sent to the same general workshop neither is going to get customized help in their area of need.
How are the tiers of learning applied?
Start by:
- Listing all of the aspects of performance you, as a coach, desire (these are functional requirements).
- Then breakdown each of the functional requirements you have listed into the “tiers of learning” (knowledge, skills, and behaviors) by answering these questions
- What knowledge does an employee need to do this job effectively?
- What skills does an employee need to do this job effectively?
- What behaviors does an employee need to exhibit to do this job effectively?
*Here's the kicker, be sure to ask these questions to both employees and customers, as performers of these functional requirements and receivers of these functional, their input should be greatly considered in identifying the important elements of what it means to be “successful” in a given area.
For more in on how to start a coaching plan download the whitepaper
