The semantics of training and development do a great job of muddling the topic of human effectiveness on the job.
What, precisely, are the differences and similarities among terms like “engagement” and “performance management” and “performance appraisal,” and even “motivation”?
At the Center for Management and Organization Effectiveness, we mostly leave these questions to others. We focus instead on a skill that drives any and all of the above – regardless of terminology. In fact, it has been our number-one workshop for more than 25 years.
It’s not trendy, perhaps, to work on coaching skills. Yet we see a growing demand for leaders and managers who know how to collaborate and succeed through other people and teams. That’s what we teach in our flagship workshop, Eight Step Coaching.
We acknowledge the expertise and commitment of those who design, use (and pay for) some of the sophisticated performance appraisal systems available today. We maintain, however, that without strong coaching skills in a corporation’s leadership ranks, even the best of these systems is at risk.
Performance appraisal systems simply can’t get the job done alone. More than once we have watched respected organizations install an advanced (and expensive) performance appraisal apparatus – without making sure their coaching skills are sufficiently strong. The results have been disappointing to all concerned.
The heart of performance management, of exercising influence to create positive, creative change, is a human exchange. It is a set of people skills and experiences that allows a manager to implement the goals of the organization – and, presumably, of the performance appraisal system.
In other words, management coaching is essential. With coaching skills in place, performance appraisal systems have a clear shot at success. The issue becomes execution, and skilled execution – not merely installation or investment.
Our approach to management coaching is practical. Leaving theory to the theoreticians, we help our clients understand what really goes on in a coaching session, in the coach’s thoughts as well as in those of the person being coached. In particular, we teach them how to fully appreciate and act upon the need for motivation and commitment.
In much of the management literature, motivation and commitment are motherhoods, briefly venerated and just as quickly dismissed. In our Eight Step approach, motivation and commitment are numbered among the eight steps. Workshop participants analyze them and practice them.
Finally, although the Eight Step Coaching workshop addresses too many other topics to detail here, we also tackle the question of why so many managers and leaders fail to coach. We help them see and understand why such obstacles appear, and give them strategies for clearing the hurdles they encounter.
The coaching partnership we help create focuses on change, and on success. It supports and extends the reach of strong leaders and of performance management systems. Most of all, our clients tell us it works.
Cliff Hebard is a senior facilitator for CMOE. He has helped many multinational organizations in the area of management coaching and employee development.
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Management Coaching: The Heart of Performance Management