A Fresh Approach to Performance Management…

by Karen Amos

Life as a coach can be a strange way to earn a living.  It can appear very negative on first inspection.  I inhabit a world of performance management and even disciplinary proceedings.  But it’s actually anything but negative.

You know the feeling – yet another member of staff has done or said something they shouldn’t have. (Again! – Cue slap head/rolling eyes emojis)  You’re in despair.  They’re a great member of staff, you can really see what they bring to the team, but there’s just this one recurring problem.

A classic example I encounter is the person who doesn’t communicate appropriately.  This could be anything from a manager, to a front-line worker.  Somewhere along the line, there is a trail of informal and even formal complaints about this person’s ‘attitude’ and communication style.

Or perhaps it’s their self-management in their role, such as managing workload.

So you do the right thing and ‘have a word’.  You tell them what they’re doing isn’t appropriate, etc. and off they go.  To do the exact same thing again.  And on it goes, until finally your days are filled with grievance and disciplinary hearings. The whole thing often has an inevitability about it, BUT – there is another way!

It’s a coaching approach… Read on to find out how…

Traditionally, disciplinary and performance management has relied on telling people what we don’t want them to do.  This definitely has its place in your management toolkit.

The problem with this approach is 3-fold:

1. It doesn’t get to the root of the problem
2. It doesn’t help them find the resources to work out what they should do instead
3. It doesn’t effectively build personal responsibility and accountability

This is where coaching as an approach comes into its own.

Before we go any further, do understand that coaching is no fluffy bunny approach – in fact just the opposite.   This is a highly effective way to get to the root of the problem and give the responsibility for solving this right back to the person.

Here are two ways you can implement this approach in your workplace:

1.  Take a coaching approach to managing people

This is simply to be clear about what you expect from the person, but then to use a coaching approach and questions to help them to come up with actions and solutions to resolve the issue.

This has the additional advantage of you easily being able to hold the person to account for any actions they set, which means they’re much more likely to follow this through, rather than taking your directions and suggestions.

2.  Engaging a 1-to-1 professional coach

An external coach will have specialised tools and approaches to quickly get to the crux of the issue with the person.  Often people don’t know what they don’t know, so using these approaches and a combination of coaching, training and mentoring means we can help the person explore and implement alternative ways to resolve the issue.

Areas I frequently work on with clients include building better communication styles with staff, managing their stress in high-pressure environments and changing mindsets to workload management.

As managers, you often don’t have the time to do this yourself and the confidential nature of coaching means people are much less defensive and likely to open up to the real challenges they’re facing.

If you’d like to develop People Management or Difficult Conversations skills for yourself or your team, check out our latest training offers below.

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If you’ve any questions, or would like to discuss alternatives, do get in touch for an informal chat.  EMAIL US, or book in an informal chat using the button below.  We’ll find out about the support you need and provide you with a no-obligation quote.

Karen Amos is an executive coach and Director and Founder of BrightBird Coaching & Training. She supports business owners, managers and education leaders to get the best out of themselves and their teams. She brings a down-to-earth approach to improving working lives through better leadership, communication and working relationships. 

Tel: 07714 855757 or email: