A Coaching Quick Reference Guide
Basic Rules of Progress Coaching
When coaching employees, it is important to remember that it is not the end destination. Coaching employees is a process focused on improving performance from a positive training perspective. Words like “right” and “wrong” do NOT exist in Progress Coaching because Progress coaching is not a predetermined management system. Progress Coaching varies to adapt to each individual employee’s needs and challenges, as well as personality and learning style. Only target one or two major performance areas in 3-6 month increments.
Core Principle of Coaching
Coaching is a process that begins assessing and then defining the level of performance from:
- The employee’s perspective
- The manager’s view of the employee
- Gap created between the two
These results are than correlated with the value of the specific area being assessed. Defining the value of a specific area of performance is a vital part of progress coaching. Identifying the value of performance produces the value driver that will ultimately help to determine which training and/or learning initiatives should be used during the coaching process.
- A rough example is a customer service rep having a low value driver for cold calling; whereas, a sales rep will have a high value driver for cold calling.
When coaching employees it is important to resist the “Let me show you” temptation. Showing an employee will not allow the employee to truly own new tasks or adjustments in existing tasks. As a coach, your role is to facilitate and manage the employee learning process. Managers MUST develop a conscious effort to inspire and motivate staff to get better through learning and achieve bottom line results.
- Change ONLY occurs when habits and behaviors sustain themselves; therefore, it is incumbent upon management to drive and reinforce this change as often as possible.
- The KEY is to Teach through the art of strategic questioning and provide feedback “specific” to the change that is desired verse what is being demonstrated.
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