Performance Coaching

All too often, performance coaching is used with "low performers" who provide frequent performance or behavior problems. These are the employees who provide organizations challenges and take up the majority of leaders' performance coaching time. While these "low performers" do need coaching, guidance, and discipline, we often fail to look at the other end of the spectrum: Those employees who consistently exceed our expectations. Through research, development, and working with clients worldwide over the past 28 years, CMOE has found that managers often fail to provide performance coaching to above-average or outstanding employees. A disservice to ourselves and our employees.

THE FEAR OF PERFORMANCE COACHING
In the workplace, one of our biggest fears is for a leader to be hesitant about coaching strong employees. These are members of the workforce who need little performance coaching, so we hesitate to interfere or don't allocate the time. We, in fact, have the same dilemma in our own organization. We could probably get along quite nicely by simply smoothing over the small or infrequent issues with these employees. But the truth is that, on occasion, above-average employees create problems, and they do want and deserve developmental and performance coaching. You need to approach these employees a bit differently from other employees. In all likelihood, they are knowledgeable, skillful, and self-motivated, and their own personality style probably fits that of the organization. These high-achieving employees try to indirectly tell us through the quality of their work, that they want to be helpful to the organization and feel genuinely responsible for doing the best possible job. Consequently, when we fail to provide these employees with performance coaching and feedback, the employees are the ones who are are done the greatest disservice - not ourselves.

We find that when a concern or issue does develop, it is the result of factors other than those listed above, because these employees are interested in working effectively, are talented, and aren't attracted to nonconformity. The only remaining causes of performance problems for these employees are perceptual blind spots (the employee made an error and didn't realize it), confusion and misunderstanding (the employee didn't realize or understand that the assignment was his/her responsibility), or inadequate resources (the employee didn't have sufficient time, money, equipment, or the personnel needed to do the job.) The good news is that these performance problems are easier to deal with when you have talented, motivated, and compatible employees working on your side. The bad news is that, as the leader, you must fulfill your performance coaching obligation and refuse to allow these employees to blindly plod along thinking everything is fine.

We suggest that leaders seriously consider using a performance coaching session that is less directive when coaching highly talented employees. Because you already have so many advantages in your favor, all you need to do is guide the coaching process. Using questions and non-aggressive statements, along with a lot of collaboration and support, the coaching session should come quite naturally. But we can't say this too strongly: the more hard working and sincere the employee, the more you must articulate various forms of support throughout the dialogue. Otherwise, the employee may feel attacked, devalued, and unappreciated. Using a more "collaborative" style of coaching will prevent the unwanted side effects of a bad performance coaching session, namely, bitterness and resentment for intruding up or over directing the employee when he/she is very able and willing to act on his/her own. These employees deserves some credit for their abilities, and you need to know what is happening in their roles and responsibilities and how performance will be improved or changed.

Good employees don't like to be misled. These people are perceptive; they know when you are being overly cautious with them, avoiding sticky or unpleasant issues. Our plea is that you deal with any issues openly. Maintaining open lines of communication will clarify that you intend to work in concert with them, that you are an ally rather than an adversary.

To learn more about CMOE's research based performance coaching process, please contact a CMOE representative.

Steven Stowell, Ph.D., is the President and Founder of CMOE (The Center for Management and Organization Effectiveness). Dr. Stowell and the CMOE team have spent 32 years assisting organizations worldwide in the areas of Performance Coaching, Leadership Training, and Organizational Development and Change.

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