By By Magella. Sergerie, M.Ed,
When Performance Management replaced Performance Evaluation inOrganizations, it was going to give leadership a differentdefinition and much more credibility and accountability to allmembers of a team. Instead of having little control overpersonal development within the organization, leaders and teammembers could begin to create relationships that would develop aworkforce with skills needed to compete in a globalizing world.Because this approach looks towards the future rather than thepast as the Performance Evaluation does, team members andleaders began to receive constant feedback from relationships,giving everyone a maximum amount of control over their ownperformance.
The major component of the Performance Management Process is"Coaching." There are three important steps to this process andeach step seeks to answer just a few critical questions. Byusing coaching atevery step, the team becomes more aligned with the goals of theorganization.
The first step begins at the Organization's Fiscal Year whereobjectives are established. The basic questions to answer are:
What are we going to do? What are our goals for the next fiscalyear? What needs to be developed?
During the year, team members and leaders will have follow-updiscussion(s) to provide feedback on their ongoing performanceand answer the following questions:
How are we doing? Are we accomplishing our goals? What are theareas for improvement? What else needs to be developed to meetour goals?
These follow-up discussions (The second step of the PerformanceManagement Process) are aimed at improving performances in orderto achieve objectives. During these discussions, the leader willcoach the team members to help team members develop in areasidentified at the beginning of the year (during the first stepof the process) or during the actual follow-up discussions.
The third step of the process is a final discussion between theteam member and the leader that will be put into writing inanswering the questions:
How did we do? Did we accomplish our goals - where did we comeup short? What should we concentrate on next year? The successof this approach is dependent on two conditions: the way theleader handles the
Effective coaching relationships between team members andleaders can improve the performance of human resources withinthe organization. The outcome is better performing employeesproducing better results.
So what do the "coaches" consider to be an effective coach? Whatwas their definition of coaching? The one thing we knew for sure(based on years of taking surveys) is that employees need andwant effective coaching on a regular basis. This was true in thepast and is still the same as we gain a better understanding ofcoaching in the workplace for Performance Management.
Coaching is a"process" used in developing partnering relationships. I am notdebating the fact that shareholders need results, I am simplysuggesting that the results achieved as an outcome of aneffective coaching relationship is long lasting and much moreappealing to team members in today's organizations. It may evenbe an important strategy for the challenge in regards to keepingand attracting employees.
Based on the last two decades spent with thousands of leaders atall levels in different organizations, I have often heard thefollowing sentence from team members: "Walk the talk" and "Iwill commit to doing everything I possibly can to improve myperformance."
Still, many leaders experience difficulties with the Coachingapproach when this program is first implemented. Theirdifficulties are often the result of:
Misunderstanding of the coaching approach. Too many leaders andteam members still believed that Performance Management was justanother name for what had been done in the past (PerformanceEvaluation). They were convinced this was simply a differentstationary form. Therefore, discussions were still done in atop-down method i.e.: Here is what you are not doing well andhere is what you will do to improve it. Now, go to it! Not veryuseful for helping team members and developing partneringrelationships...!
Misuse because leaders using coaching concentrated on the endresult rather than the process to use to obtain this result.There was little or no relationship development between teammembers and leaders. Talks often sounded like the ineffectivecoach in professional sports i.e.: A basketball coach demands tosee a higher score on the scoreboard in order to win. When aplayer asks for feedback on how to do that, the answer is: Idon't care how you do it, just do it! This results in the teammembers feeling manipulated. They will start to do as little asneeded to keep their job. So when a new leader joins this team,the new leader is convinced that the team members were notcommitted. This brings to mind the term "self serving biases."
Misleading because the word "coaching" has been used in so manyways, many team members believe that it is just another way toget all the juice out of them in order to satisfy theshareholder regardless of the impact it has on human beings andultimately the organization. Unfortunately, coaching is used todescribe many different things, it was hard to be clear aboutit. Often, the word "coach" and "mentor" are interchanged. Someadvocate that coaching is a skill needed by the boss, and othersseemed to believe that coaching is a process that should be doneby someone else other than the boss.
Yet, when leaders regularly use coaching discussionseffectively, it becomes very easy to determine what should begoing onto the final document for the year. It is also easy todetermine what the answers to the questions of the first stepfor the following year will be. That is true PerformanceManagement!
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