coaching for managers

As the Baby Boomers retire, the available workforce will continue to shrink. In this environment, it is critical to retain qualified employees, and one of the best ways to do this is through workforce development. The single most important factor in workforce development is the ability of managers to coach and develop their direct reports.

We have developed a dynamic program called Coaching for Managers which is designed to help managers at all levels of the organization learn how to help others integrate new skills and capabilities.

Purpose:

To teach managers how to effectively coach others. Coaching is focused on development of another person’s skills and abilities in a personalized way. It may have one or two contexts: it may be provided to a person who is performing poorly and needs to improve or to a person who is performing well and wishes to develop new capabilities. The coaching process closes the gap between an individual’s or team’s present level of performance and the desired one.

Examples of Coaching Situations:

Do any of these situations seem familiar to you? In all three cases, the people have strengths but a weakness is significantly impacting their effectiveness. Perhaps they have participated in business development classes, but somehow they have been unable to change the problematic behavior. 

• Interpersonal Skill Deficiency

Jean is a mid-level manager with potential to advance to a more senior role. She is very bright, disciplined, and has many good ideas for future services. She is in her mid-thirties, has good understanding of her field of discipline, and has solid planning and implementation capability. She presently supervises a small department of four. Unfortunately, you have received some disturbing feedback from one of her subordinates and several of her peers that she is often impatient, with a tendency to be short tempered. She can be caustic with others. You really want her to succeed and are hoping that coaching will help her improve her interpersonal skill set.

• Poor Time Management and Delegation 

Brad is Vice President of Marketing and has been with the company for many years. He has progressed up the management ladder because he is an excellent strategist in the field. He is personable, well liked, and his staff thinks highly of him. His department is very productive. However, Brad has a tendency to be late to meetings, miss deadlines on projects, and is overworked. He is often seen working late into the evenings. A recent 360º evaluation revealed that he has major problems with time management. And his staff feels he does not delegate enough, preferring to do things himself. The staff feels this creates a log jam and also is hindering their own development. You want to coach him in better time management and delegation skills.

• Competent Professional with No Prior Management Skills

Dan is a physician who recently became the Vice President of Medical Services for your community hospital. He was selected by you for this role because of his strong informal leadership role in the medical staff. He also recently received an MBA and expressed interest in moving out of private practice and into medical management. Now you need to integrate him into the senior leadership team, and he needs to take over the management of a small department. You can send him to some Executive Leadership workshops, but you know the best thing would be to personally help him learn how to manage others effectively.

Coaching is a pinpointed process of creating some change in a particular way in a relatively short period of time.

In all of these scenarios, the person will benefit from focused help in identifying and altering behaviors. As the person closest to that individual, the direct supervisor is in the best position to deliver this coaching. They are familiar with the person, their difficulties, their potential, and the skill set that is missing. Equipping your managers to coach is the most cost-effective intervention you can make.

Results:

Managers who participate in this process will be able to:

• Design individualized coaching programs for others
• Draw on assessment data from the person and others to increase the person’s awareness of areas for development
• Assist the person to stay focused on an area of improvement or learning objective to achieve the desired outcome or change
• Help the person being coached to shift their world view and thus open up new possibilities for action
• Help the person identify values and passions and align them with professional or personal goals
• Work with the person to discover answers from within
• Listen, make inquiries, and observe/reflect
• Ask powerful, thought-provoking questions that tap the inherent wisdom and creativity of the person

Class Design

Methods:

Six modular classroom sessions
Up to six individual coaching sessions
Participation in buddy group
Coaching of three subordinates

SESSION ONE Fundamentals of Coaching	SESSION TWO Coaching Model
What is Coaching Role of Desire and Commitment Role of Relationship The Two-Track Approach to Coaching Transformational Change Model Listening and Speaking A to Z Communication Formation of Buddy Groups Identification of Employees to Coach	Distinctions Coaching, Mentoring, Counseling, Discipline Premise of Coaching Flow of Coaching Products of Coaching When to Coach Structure of Interpretation Skills and Qualities of a Coach Breakdowns Emotional Intelligence and its Relationship to Coaching Enrollment, Permission, Commitment Practice Session
SESSION THREE Coaching Conversations	SESSION FOUR Coaching Conversations
Being Present: Calm, empty out, think Using Dialogic Skills Ladder of Inference The Temptations Truth without Malice, Blame, or Judgment Uncovering Structure of Interpretation How to Confront Value of Questions and Not Corralling Designing Self Observations Practice Sessions	Review of Coaching Experience The Ten No’s Accountability Partnership Model and Follow-up Designing a Coaching Plan Expectations and their Impact in Coaching Focus on Results while also Uncovering Structure of Interpretation Designing Self Observations and Practices Practice Sessions
SESSION FIVE Coaching Conversations	SESSION SIX tHE Cultural Dimensions of Coaching
Review of Coaching Experience Building Competence Importance of Support Structures Exploring Resistance to Doing Practices Reviewing Coaching Plans Designing Practices Practice Sessions	Review of Coaching Experience The Formation of Culture Identify Common Cultural Norms Coaching One Another Defining Collective Goals Action Planning

 

To keep employees in the future, you will need to continue to offer them opportunities for growth and development, which includes promotion to leaders and managers. This course will help you do both–develop your leaders and managers and enable them to develop others. We can customize the course contents to support your other managerial approaches. Give us a call today to take the next step.