November 20, 2009 -  Reliable Plant Magazine
 
Performance coaching is not about disciplinary action, nor is it about accountability (although it may promote accountability in the long term). It is really about leadership development – teaching your team of supervisors, managers and leaders the skills and behaviors that are necessary to perform their jobs as efficiently as possible in order to get the best results for themselves and the company.

Performance coaching is not about telling your management team what to do; it is about telling them how to get the best results from their people and processes. If you are experiencing mediocre productivity, ongoing conflict or high turnover, you should look first at your management team. They are the root cause for success and failure. There is an old Chinese proverb that says, “For every hundred men hacking away at the branches of a diseased tree, only one will stoop to inspect the roots.”

It is surprising to me the number of managers and executives that I meet who have no idea how to conduct performance coaching sessions. While facilitating an executive coaching session with a vice president, she told me that she had continually written her managers up and they continued to deliver substandard performance! Her frustration was evident, but writing people up is self-defeating when you have not performed due diligence in the supervisor’s or manager’s performance training. It does not teach the employee or manager the skills they need to move forward. It only punishes them for making mistakes and not performing up to expected standards. Read story.