The Manager as a Coach:

Managing Employee Performance

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The Manager As A Coach
Coaching is designed to empower each individual to understand their potential and
to identify how they can achieve it. While coaching can be an important part of sales
management, coaching skills are not innate and do not come naturally to all
managers. The Coach should knows when to support and when to stretch, when to
challenge and when to guide.
Coaching encourages the creation of goals, which can then be broken down into
manageable, measurable steps.
To support this, Coaching should be delivered on a little and often basis through a
combination of face-to-face sessions, telephone and email feedback and on the job
observation. A coach will require each individual to examine and adapt their
approach and to seek fresh ideas for boosting performance and personal job
satisfaction.
A good coach helps increase all employees motivation and initiative, productivity,
quality and effectiveness of the work group. It involves helping employees reach their
performance goals, correcting performance and behavioral deficiencies, and
positively reinforcing appropriate behavior. I think that a good coach should
understand the differences between people without trying to make any value
judgement (is the secret of respect and growth). Respect differences and a deep
perceptiveness of them is the key for a successful and sincere communication.
Good coaching:
- increases productivity, quality and effectiveness of the work group;
- makes my job as manager easier when employees build their skills and
independence;
- builds relationships with employees and strengthens their commitment and
loyalty;
- enhances employees motivation and initiative;
- encourages employees to stretch so they perform at their best;
- promotes creativity and innovation;
- reminds employees of the importance of accountability;
- Drives performance to levels needed by the organization.
Coaching skills:
- Communicate clear performance objectives;
- Provide regular performance feedback;
- Consider all relevant information when appraising performance;

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The Manager As A Coach
 - Observe performance with clients;
- Know the sales staff well enough to help them develop self-improvement
plans;
- Recognize and reward high performance;
- Provide help, training and guidance; Dialogue is
- Build a warm, friendly relationship. the heart of
COACHING

A good coach need not be an expert in the executive’s job type or industry. A good
coach does not even have to possess as wide a range of social skills as the
executive.

A process person who

can establish rapport

A good planner who Honest and

seeks follow-up and courageous in
closure providing feedback

A good
coach is:

A good listener;
Visionary and asks good question
analytical

Coaching is a process that enables people to achieve their full potential.

The essence of good coaching is offering guidance, strategies, advice, and

opportunities for improvement.

Not all feedback sessions will go smoothly. Sometimes the employees will
disagree with my feedback or become obviously upset. But by using good

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The Manager As A Coach
communication skills, including listening skills, and by remaining calm and objective I
am less likely to get caught up in the employees emotions. I think when people
express strong emotions – disappointment, embarrassment, anger, or even
happiness – my empathetic response helps them release their negative or positive
feelings.

I can’t please all of the people all of the time, but coaching can be a powerful tool to
implementing change, increasing motivation and addressing individual performance
issues, thereby harnessing the potential for success.
Listening is a powerful way to build trust and improve communication. And when I
respond with empathy, people know I understand how they’re feeling and why they
are feeling that way. This encourages my employees to share their feelings and
ideas with me.
As my employee’s coach, I have many opportunities to provide feedback throughout
the year as well as, of course, during year-end evaluation review discussion.
When I provide feedback I:
- address performance problems as an opportunity for professional
development;
- listen actively to the employee’s concern;
- remember and acknowledge that negative feedback is both hard to give and
hard to receive;
- identify and ask for specific behaviors or training needed to correct
performance problems;
- identify a course of action acceptable to both parties for problem solve
solutions;
- don’t discount emotional responses that are bound to occur;
- Work to communicate assertively rather than aggressively or submissively.
My role is to guide the employee through the performance review process – setting
direction and establishing clear performance expectations for my employees, giving
performance feedback, providing support necessary for my employee to be
successful. Giving feedback is first of all an attitude and can only be made a habit by
constant practice.
Good feedback practice:
1. Facilitates the development of self-assessment (reflection);

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The Manager As A Coach
 2. Encourages people;
3. Should be given in a personal and interactive manner;
4. Should be given in a specific and nonjudgmental way;
5. Helps clarify what good performance is (goals, criteria, expected standards);
6. Provides opportunities to close the gap between current and desired
performance;
Delivers high quality information;
7. Encourages positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem;
8. Provides information to coach (good feedback contains helpful information).
9. Being Supportive.
There is a fine line between advice and support. Advice involves telling someone
how to solve a problem. Support on the other hand, makes the other person feel
valued. It is well intentioned and shows a willingness to share observations and seek
information to help the employee to succeed. It does not assert superiority or
position. Like a friendly but curious detective, I want to investigate behavior rather
than take a position that assigns right-wrong labels to a person.
Effective feedback – It is one of the most crucial elements in assisting employees to
improve their performance. It establishes a connection between what employees are
doing and how their actions are perceived by others
There is an art to giving feedback. If not done properly, or done with the
wrong intention, people will take your comments as criticism.
Feedback should be done as soon as possible – excellent feedback given at an
inappropriate time may do more harm than good. Often after a bad outcome,
employees are working through their own emotions, and are often quite critical of
their performance. At this time, brief feedback and emotional support are best,
followed later by a more detailed feedback session. Feedback should also be done
in private, unless it can be given in such a manner as to not be embarrassing
When assessing performance, should focus on what went well, and what can be
improved.
There is an art to giving feedback.

Managing a difficult boss is a challenge. Bosses need to be managed as much

as anyone else.

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The Manager As A Coach
Bosses have to deal with their own set of very challenging pressures and priorities –
conflicting organizational objectives, peer relational, functional challenges, their own
bosses, etc.
First, I should try to understand the reasons for my boss difficult behavior (putting
myself in the boss place!). Doing that in a reasonable manner I think that chances
are good that the behavior can be modified.
Second, I have to manage my own negative emotions regarding his behavior so that
I don’t engage in self defeating behavior.
Third, after I understand and manage my own negative reactions I try to
communicate my issues – but framed in a helpful positive manner – creating an
atmosphere for problem resolution.
Bad boss can suck the motivation, creativity, enthusiasm, productivity and health
right out of decent people trying to do a good job.

Instead of telling my boss about a problem, or even worse, bitching about it behind
his back, better I try to:

1. Define the problem. I try to make the problem easy to understand;

2. Explain why the problem happened with a brief analysis;
3. Find a possible solution. I think the people hate hearing about problems, I try
to propose a solution, even if I know it has rough edges

Always I try to remember that both (me and my boss) looking for the same
things...
Trust,
Support,
Communication,
And
Recognition.

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The Manager As A Coach