Coaching for higher performance

 

Dissertation Writing Helping  in Coaching for higher performance

 

Coaching was, until recently, an unacknowledged tool of management. Now, with the popularity and increasing practice of empowerment, as well as a deeper understanding of how people learn, the performance benefits of coaching are becoming more widely known and accepted. Rather than being peripheral, coaching is seen as having clear and unique advantages, and is establishing itself alongside related activities, such as mentoring and counselling, as a key development technique.

Improving individual performance

Coaching has a number of characteristics which differentiate it from other activities. Coaching managers are convinced that their key means of adding value to the organization is to help their staff to learn, grow and develop. The purpose of this is clearly identified as improving the performance of an individual person. The learning process occurs in the office or place of work so that actual work – rather than a carefully simulated exercise – is the vehicle for the learning experience. The emphasis is on the learner learning rather than the coach teaching and the coach’s style is usually non-intrusive with an emphasis on helping from a distance. Coaching can also cut across hierarchies and functional boundaries – a senior manager can, for example, act as a mentor for a more junior manager elsewhere in the organization. Or, someone in an IT department may have a coaching role with internal customers in other departments.

Coaching is concerned with creating conditions so that people can perform to the best of their ability. “My coach’s role was to enable me to perform with distinction”, says Olympic athlete, Judy Simpson. A learner who is being coached will feel a sense of ownership and that they are managing their own development. It is a short step from managing your own learning to managing your own performance, a cornerstone of concepts such as empowerment and performance management. Though sometimes equated with delegation, coaching is actually much more. Most managers claim to be wellpractised
at delegating work. Usually, this involves work they are too busy to do or simply do not want to do, which is delegated to people they feel will do the work effectively.

In doing so, managers may well be missing opportunities to develop and coach their staff. Whenever a manager performs a task which someone else could do, they prevent themselves doing a task which only they can do. The manager who acts as a coach turns conventional wisdom about delegation on its head. Instead of selecting someone who can already do the work being delegated,
they deliberately select someone who cannot do it. In addition to setting the goals of the actual work to be done, they add learning goals. They coach the learner to give him/her the necessary skills and confidence to carry out the task.

To begin this process, managers should examine their own activities. Minor decisions often take up a substantial part of their time. Most of these can be delegated by coaching staff in the principles, procedures and decision rules which need to be followed. Also, managers may well be keeping tasks which they enjoy within their remit when these should have been shared or delegated.

Delegation

Delegation is just one example of how coaching involves managers looking creatively at all aspects of their role. They need to ask themselves continuously whether a particular task offers an opportunity for learning. Yorkshire Water for example has introduced an innovative programme of “temporary promotions”. Top managers are required to take “sabbatical” leave after five years. For three months they are away from the organization and one of their subordinates takes their place – this, of
course, creates a chain reaction down the organization. This approach not only refreshes the senior managers, but also provides opportunities for many others to expand their skills and horizons.

It is this sort of creativity and adaptability which lies at the heart of effective coaching. Flexibility is often identified as a central factor in its effectiveness. “Sometimes I think you should allow people to do things simply because they want to, even if there is no immediately visible bottom-line benefit. For example, I agreed recently to one of my people spending some time on a project to help handicapped children,” says Chris Johnston, marketing manager at Glaxo Pharmaceuticals.

Coaching helps create people who can adapt willingly to change. By its very nature, all learning entails change and this is particularly true of the learning created by managerial coaching. The starting point is often a desired output from the learner – a sustained change in behaviour which is visible as new skills and competences are developed and practised. Individuals are much more likely to regard change in a positive light if they associate change with learning, and are already enthusiastic about their own personal development. “You learn about change by changing”, says Svend Frederiksen, personnel manager of Kuwait Petroleum in Denmark. “It is not good enough to be satisfied with your current job and current level of performance: flexibility is what we need.” This sort of enthusiasm for change is best stimulated if people are visibly supported, helped and encouraged in the learning process by their manager – which are key elements of coaching. People who have been coached offer many insights into how the coach-learner relationship works best. From the learner’s perspective, being coached involves: 

•  assertiveness – they need to make it clear what they want to achieve;
•  taking initiatives – learners may need to ask to see their coach because the coach may be unaware that they need help;
• openness and honesty – coaches need to know if a learner has specific reasons for doing or not doing a particular task;

• asking for feedback and suggestions – sometimes coaches have to be prompted to give a full review of a learner's successes and mistakes;

•  networking – coaching offers the learner an opportunity to build valuable networks;

• clarifying objectives – the coaching project should have a clear, written statement of objectives;

• taking responsibility –- most of all, learners need to take responsibility for their own learning.

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