Get Smart!

Coaching is a frequently misunderstood and misused process. Often within organisations, it is merely mentoring with a different name or management with a soft edge! It is appraisal-time assessment with a “what would you like?” thrown in.

But in fact coaching is none of these things. It is a specific tool and process that allows you to get the very best from your workforce.

So what makes it unique? What is this thing that we call performance coaching?

Here are seven key principles that underpin coaching which every performance coach knows and every manager, HR officer, CEO or team leader needs to know.

1 The performance coach doesn’t need to know the answer

So often, we feel we need to have the answer for someone else’s concerns or goals. “If you do xyz you will get abc.” Mentors, managers, trainers all have the answer to some degree and often that is very useful, timesaving and expected.

But coaching puts the responsibility for finding the answer firmly with the person being coached. The coach doesn’t need to know the answer. Indeed, it’s better if they don’t so they can’t lead the client to that specific answer. “What’s wrong with that?” you might ask. Well, what if there’s a better answer out there?

Coaching recognises that we all have our own experience and perspective on things which leads us to think we know the answer. But the problem with that is we are precisely limited by our own experience and understanding. Coaching helps the client find their own which will, for them, be more powerful.

Their answer might also be more effective, more creative, more productive or more profitable. They might, in short, have a much better solution that the coach.

So coaching allows the client to unlock their own answers and find their own most effective path to their goal.

A side benefit of this, of course, is that it means the coach can coach anyone on their problem or challenge since the answer sits with the client!

2 Performance Coaching always looks ahead to solutions and results

Coaching is about finding solutions and achieving results. It is not about apportioning blame, finding excuses, understanding the “whys”. It’s about what needs to change, what needs to happen and what can be put in place to create a different result.

Performance coaching may tackle the past in terms of past behaviours, feelings and results but only in so far as they offer clues and direction for the client to change what happens going forward.

So coaching is about producing a result, achieving a goal, changing behaviour, identifying and dealing with blockages and hurdles.

If there is no solution then we can effectively say that it is not coachable since coaching assumes and indeed requires options for action and change.

3 Performance coaches use a range of models to achieve their aims

There is no one single silver bullet in coaching!

Performance coaches will learn and use a range of tools and models to support the client in achieving clarity on how they are going to succeed in raising their performance.

Whether this is the classic GROW model for coaching and SMART model for goal setting or the lesser known models such as STAR for the coaching process or EXACT for goal setting. Perhaps they will use a range of models which uncover psychological dimensions to the client (still with a focus on future solutions) or perhaps an understanding of team dynamics using Belbin’s model.

Whatever the situation, the underlying principles of coaching work through the coaching models to create the best and most effective response and result for both the organisation and the individual or team.

4 Coaching creates clarity

All coaching should create clarity.

This could and should be clarity of purpose, of action, of the stumbling blocks, of the problems encountered and all other aspects of the coaching relationship.

Clarity is often the lynchpin to unblocking results and support someone to reach their potential. And afterall that’s what performance coaching is all about!

Clarity creates the conditions for action to take place. This is why coaches focus so heavily on creating measurable goals, on eliciting clear actions and understanding what might stop those actions. The clarity that coaching brings is at all levels from the initial motivation (so what would this goal give you?), through recognising what has to change (what’s stopped you so far?) to well structured ways forward (what precisely are you going to do? by when? what could stop you?)

Without clarity, coaching becomes bogged down in detail, stories, excuses, reasons, woolly aspirations and inaction.

Whilst these are all things that coaches will face frequently, it is the coach’s role to create clear ideas, clear motivation and clear, measurable goals and action.

5 Performance coaching challenges the client to achieve the very best results

Coaching engages the client in a conversation that takes them beyond their normal thinking and achieves heights that they otherwise wouldn’t or to achieve those heights faster than if they didn’t have a coach.

It does this through the challenging nature of the conversation. Just think of how we easily find excuses and reasons for not achieving our potential. And then imagine that you weren’t allowed to accept those reasons and that you were pushed to take responsibility for what you could do differently, accepting your role in your success or failure.

This is the challenge of coaching.

It ensures that the client holds themselves to account for their action and indeed for their inaction. It ensures that the client thinks beyond their normal response and their usual actions. It works on the assumption that doing the same thing will get the same results and so something needs to change.

6 In coaching, questions rule!

The fundamental process of coaching and where the power really lies is in the questions that the coach asks.

Think about it now. If someone simply talked at you, you can nod and shake your head and say the occasional “mmm” but your mind can be entirely elsewhere. But when you are asked “what can you differently right now to improve your results at work?” or even “What do you want your life to have meant by the time you’re 80?” then your mind starts to whirr.

The fact is that questions produce a powerful process in our minds that lead to answers.

And in performance coaching this is where real change lies. It lies in the learning and the understanding that the client comes to.

This is why coaches learn to ask questions which don’t merely collect data and facts – after all the client learns nothing from telling you what they already know. Instead, coaches learn how to ask questions that produce creative and powerful thought, which create, in effect, learning in the client’s mind.

A coaching question is no ordinary question but one which is powerful, productive and stimulating.

7 Ultimately, performance coaching is about action and change

All the questions and coaching models in the world are wasted if the client doesn’t take action which leads to change.

Coaching seeks to hold the client to account for their actions and continues to explore what can be done differently throughout the process. It focuses always on the future action identifying what blocks need to be removed (emotionally or practically), what support is needed, what motivation needs to be found, what must change.

Ultimately, coaching is all about the change that takes place: the improved sales figures; the increased retention; the reduction in complaints; the promotion; the staff morale; the bottom line. It’s about real measurable results.

Summary

These seven things you need to know merely scratch the surface. Coaching happens between two (or more) real people with all the complexities that this involves and the key is to create a coaching culture and skill set that makes coaching work as effectively as possible.

Performance coaching can make a huge difference to any organisation when used well. It is important that it is fully understood and not muddied by other forms of intervention such as mentoring, management and training. All of these interventions have key roles to play of course but the more we all understand what makes performance coaching unique the more effectively and appropriately we can use it to create amazing results for our organisations and the individuals who work there.