Coaching

Topic Overview
What Is Coaching?
Preparing to Coach
Discussing Performance Problems and Skill Gaps
Coaching Actively



What Is Coaching?
Like any manager, you have a huge interest in developing your employees’ capabilities. In most cases, this is accomplished through coaching. Coaching is an ongoing, two-way process in which a manager and direct report share knowledge and experienceto maximize the direct report’s potential and help him or her achieve agreed-upon goals. Coaching relies on collaboration and requires a positive, supportive emotional bond between coach and coachee.
Many people use the words coaching and mentoring interchangeably, but the two functions differ. Coaching focuses on immediate performance problems and learning opportunities, while mentoringemphasizes long-term personal career development. Moreover, while a coach is often the supervisor of the person being coached, a mentor is seldom the boss of the person being mentored. Finally, a coach directs the learning and instruction during the coaching process, while the mentored person takes charge of his or her own learning during the mentoring process.
The benefits of coaching
Coachinggenerates numerous benefits for you and your company. It’s useful for:
• Overcoming costly and time-consuming performance problems
• Strengthening employees’ skills so you can delegate more tasks to them and devote time to more important responsibilities—such as planning
• Boosting productivity by helping your employees work smarter
• Creating promotable direct reports who can step into your shoes asyou advance up the career ladder
• Improving retention, because employees are more loyal and motivated when their boss takes time to help them improve their skills
• Fostering a positive work culture in the form of greater job satisfaction and higher motivation
• Making more effective use of company resources, because coaching costs less than formal training
When should you coach?
Coachingis an ongoing process, taking place as the need or opportunity arises. Often, coaching occurs informally as you discuss goals, challenges, and on-the-job performance with employees and provide helpful feedback during day-to-day encounters.
At other times, the coaching process can be more focused and formal; you set up structured meetings with a coachee to establish goals and review progress.Coaching also has a direct link to performance appraisal. Often, a manager offers to provide coaching for a direct report after a performance appraisal reveals a correctable problem or the need to develop particular skills essential for advancement.
See also Tips for When to Coach.
Whom should you coach?
Every situation in a manager’s life presents opportunities for coaching. Consider theseexamples:
• Herb is a talented market researcher but spends more of his time at his computer than in meetings with market planners and new product developers. His valuable findings aren’t making their way into company plans, and his career is stalled.
• Claudia is a fast learner, works well with others, and understands the company’s goals. You’d like to promote her, but her reluctance to confrontdifficult, argumentative people is holding her back.
• Tim is a smart and hardworking employee, and you’d like to delegate more challenging tasks to him so you can devote more time to planning. But Tim needs to acquire a few more skills to perform the tasks you’d like to delegate to him.
• Shirley, whom you recently promoted to supervisor, isn’t delegating enough tasks to her subordinates; she’strying to do everything herself. Moreover, when she leads meetings with her team, the meetings end inconclusively and run overtime.
All of these situations are examples of employees who either have a performance problem or skills gap—both of which are ideal targets for coaching.
As an experienced manager, you have plenty of knowledge to share with each of these employees. But since you have...