Performance Coaching For Dummies E-Book

Gladeana McMahon

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Seitenzahl: 382

Beschreibung

Performance coaching is a modern and rapidly growing method used to assist development, and involves helping individuals to improve their performance in all areas of their life, with a particular emphasis on the workplace. Performance coaching draws parallels with NLP and often focuses on the psychology of excellence - making what's good even better, and helping individuals keep ahead of the game. On an organisational level it can include helping managers to consider how to get the best from their staff, peers and superiors, as well as helping to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. A performance coach assists individuals in building on their successes and helps to design, plan and instigate successful business/life strategies. Despite its popularity confusion still surrounds coaching. It is a relatively new area and there is still a lack of understanding about how best to use coaching and in what specific situations it will be most effective. In addition to this, anyone can assume a performance/professional/business/life coach title without holding any particular qualification or registration. With this increased awareness and confusion the need for a no-nonsense book on the topic that offers trusted advice is needed all the more, which is where Performance Coaching For Dummies steps in.

Leseprobe

Performance Coaching For Dummies®

by Gladeana McMahon and Averil Leimon

Performance Coaching For Dummies®

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd The Atrium Southern Gate Chichester West Sussex PO19 8SQ England

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ISBN: 978-0-470-51748-2

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About the Authors

Gladeana McMahon is considered one of the leading personal development and transformational coaches in the UK. She was instrumental in founding the Association for Coaching for which she now holds the positions of Fellow and Vice President. She is also a Fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, The Institute of Management Studies, and The Royal Society of Arts. Gladeana is widely published with some 16 popular and academic books on coaching and counselling. An innovator, Gladeana is one of the UK founders of Cognitive Behavioural Coaching and currently works as the Head of Executive Coaching for Fairplace plc and is Co-director of the Centre for Coaching. She is passionate about her work in coaching business and public sector leaders to master the psychological complexities of 21st-century corporate life. Gladeana was named as one of the UK’s top ten coaches by the Independent on Sunday and Sunday Observer.

Averil Leimon made a name for herself in coaching before anyone knew that was what it was called. As a clinical psychologist, she pioneered the transfer of techniques, knowledge, and academic discipline from the reserve of the damaged to the domain of the eminently normal (well, relatively speaking), becoming a Coaching Psychologist as a result. Averil is co-editor of an ever-increasing coaching series. A founder member of the Association for Coaching (AC), Averil was one of the first people accredited by the AC and now works as an accreditor herself in order to ensure high standards in coaching.

Also hailed as one of the top ten coaches in the UK, Averil and Gladeana make a formidable team of heavy hitters in the coaching world.

Averil’s company, White Water Strategies, combines the best of psychology and business knowledge to coach and develop rounded leaders who get things done successfully, time after time.

Authors’ Acknowledgements

From Gladeana: To all the very many coaching clients who have allowed me to help them and have taught me as much about how to be a good performance coach as I have taught them. To Averil who has been a joy to work with on this project. To Mike who helped me achieve my dream of being a writer, and to my partner Will who makes me laugh and provides me with much needed coffee to make sure I meet my deadlines!

From Averil: I can only thank my family for having such faith in my ability to write this book while running a business, a home, and a family, they completely ignored the fact that I was doing it! Just wait – my daughters are writing the next book with me so that will be fun. My husband Julian Bird’s own writings in communication in medicine have been very helpful. My daughters, Natasha and Jessica, have a capacity for both writing and hard work that is inspirational. Working with Gladeana was, as always, great fun. Thanks also to all the many and varied coaching clients over the years. I am grateful to be just as fascinated by the coaching process now as I was right at the start. And finally thanks to Rachael Chilvers at Wiley for keeping us right so charmingly.

Publisher’s Acknowledgements

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Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

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Cover Photos: © GettyImages/George Doyle

Cartoons: Ed McLachlan

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Contents

Title

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book is Organised

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I : Getting to Grips: Introducing Performance Coaching

Chapter 1: Coaching for Performance

Defining Performance Coaching

What Performance Coaching Is Not

Looking at an Overview of the Coaching Process

Checking Your Potential as a Performance Coach

Balancing In-House and External Coaching

Overcoming Resistance to Coaching

Structuring the Process

Chapter 2: Getting the Process Right

Considering What You’re Trying to Achieve by Coaching

Introducing Two Types of Performance

Managing the Performance Coaching Process

Climbing the Ladder to Success

Introducing Performance Coaching to Your Workplace

Chapter 3: Deciding What You Want to Achieve and Setting the Structure

Seeing from the Coach’s Perspective

Ensuring that Your Colleague Is Ready to Change

Seeing from Your Colleague’s Perspective

The Six-Session Model

Avoiding Performance Coaching Road Blocks

Part II : Does Your Face Fit?: The Personal Attributes of a Performance Coach

Chapter 4: Starting the Relationship with Trust and Respect

Building the Foundations of the Relationship

Showing Respect

Establishing the Ground Rules

Working in Partnership

Chapter 5: Getting Your Hands Dirty: The Practical Skills of Performance Coaching

Letting Your Body Do the Talking

Hear, Hear! Using Listening Skills

Asking Different Types of Questions

Probing to Get to the Point

Sounding It Out: Paraphrasing

Reflecting Feelings

Challenging with Care

Through a Glass Clearly: The Five Domains of Emotional Intelligence

Chapter 6: Advancing Your Skills: The Magic of Motivation

Getting People Excited

Aiming for Change

Discussing Feedback

Are We There Yet?

Chapter 7: Equipping Your Coaching Toolkit

Introducing the Seven-Stage Problem-Solving Model

Testing, Testing

Seeing the Value of 360-Degree Feedback

Part III : Applying Performance Coaching

Chapter 8: Getting the Best: Talent Management

Fighting for Talent

Encouraging Talent

Measuring the Impact of Company Culture on Talent

Chapter 9: Managing Change

Coping with Changing Times

Cutting Costs and Speeding Up the Process with Coaching

Coaching through Change

Helping Colleagues Make Use of Their Support Systems

Understanding Stress

Chapter 10: Following the Organisational Life Cycle

Understanding the Organisational Life Cycle

Being Prepared for a Recession

Riding the Wave of Expansion

Getting Back to Normal: Performance Recovery

Chapter 11: Managing Careers

Stepping Out on the Career Path

What Really Matters to Me?

Excelling During the First 100 Days

Balancing Life and Work

Chapter 12: Getting the Best Out of Your Teams

Delving Deeper into Teamwork

Identifying Strengths and Weaknesses in Team Roles

Minimising Team Weaknesses

Ensuring Effective Communication

Coaching Teams: A Case Study

Avoiding the Pitfalls

Part IV : Troubleshooting in Performance Coaching

Chapter 13: Coping with Difficult Situations

Dealing with Negative Reactions

Coping with Anger

Handling Distress

Managing Personality Clashes

Avoiding ‘Scapegoating’

Chapter 14: Overcoming Negativity

Overcoming Negative Emotions with Motivation

Reaching for the Stars: Raising Aspirations

Challenging Overconfidence and Lack of Insight

Seeing Yourself as Others See You: The Johari Window

Careless Whispers: Overcoming Anxiety About Confidentiality

Overcoming Setbacks

Chapter 15: Managing Organisational Problems

Improving Communication

Coaching an Uncertain Organisation

Preventing the Loss of Good People

Avoiding Litigation

Part V : The Part of Tens

Chapter 16: Ten Steps to Performance Excellence

Strive to Achieve Interdependence

Ensure Good Communication Channels

Work Co-operatively

Improve Your Credibility

Notice Other People’s Achievements

Focus on Outcome

Delegate to Stretch Yourself

Let Others Have a Say

Develop Your Influence

Get Things Done

Chapter 17: Ten Steps to Coaching Yourself

Improve Your Confidence

Create a Positive Lifestyle

Manage Your Money

Get Creative

Float into Relaxation

Deal with Criticism Assertively

Give Criticism Assertively

Increase Your Chances of Success

Successfully Manage Your Time

Keep Stress Under Control

Chapter 18: Ten Useful Resources

Finding Wise Words in Books

Entangling Yourself in Web Sites

Getting Advice from Professional Bodies

Appendix: Forms

Performance Coaching Checklist

Coach Them!

Setting Goals

Delegating Tasks

Performance Coaching Evaluation

Sample Coaching Contract

Talking Feelings

Your Positive Introduction

The Seven-Stage Problem Solving Model

Using Psychogeometrics

FENO-menal Feedback

Four Windows on Reality

Team Performance Checklist

The Responsibility Pie

: Further Reading

Introduction

Put simply, Performance Coaching means getting the best out of people at work, and we are passionate about it. If coaching conjures up an image of men in bad shorts with megaphones yelling at would-be sports people, think again. That’s not what we do. This is a practical, helpful, and hopefully fun book for you out there who just need to get a good job done well.

About This Book

We care passionately about facilitating change, and Performance Coaching For Dummies is the written result of that passion.

We like to roll the sleeves up and start making a difference rather than sitting around defining things. In this book, we encourage you to do the same. Good coaching is highly effective. We really can’t stand wimpy, ineffectual coaching. Let’s make a difference out there!

We won’t pull the wool over your eyes by brandishing jargon at you and creating a mystique around the coaching process. We’re straight talkers. We know that you can get great results with your colleagues and staff and make a difference to your business, whatever it is, with insight into our techniques. We hope you enjoy.

Conventions Used in This Book

To help you navigate through this book, we set up a few conventions:

Italics are used for emphasis and to highlight new words, or define terms.

Boldfaced text indicates the key concept in a list.

Monofont is used for Web and e-mail addresses.

Sometimes we (the authors, Averil and Gladeana) use the pronoun ‘we’ to signify both of us or ‘I’ followed by ‘(Averil)’ or ‘(Gladeana)’, depending on who the author writing that particular paragraph is.

Also, when speaking generally we use the female pronoun ‘she’ in even-numbered chapters and the male ‘he’ in odd-numbered chapters, just to be fair to both genders!

Foolish Assumptions

We assume, and correct us if we’re wrong, that you:

Are quite a sensible, pragmatic person.

Are a manager who wants to get the best out of your team.

Have a good reason for using Performance Coaching but don’t have time to read a wordy tome or a whole panoply of books.

Know that quite a lot of psychology is behind Performance Coaching but don’t really want to get too scientific.

Need some quick hits and the tools to achieve them.

How This Book is Organised

For Dummies books give you answers – fast. You may need to know something specific right now; and other situations that crop up along the way will drive you back to read different sections.

You don’t need to read this book from cover to cover – unless you’d like to (and we secretly hope you do!). Look up the bit you want. Check out the table of contents and the index to find what you need.

The next sections tell you what you can look forward to.

Part I: Getting to Grips: Introducing Performance Coaching

This part is all about painting the big picture. Find out here what Performance Coaching is all about and how to use it. This is where you can begin to work out what you really mean by ‘performance’. Successful Performance Coaching needs an underlying structure and philosophy in order to succeed. This part helps you understand and set up the structure and decide on the goals to shape your coaching.

Part II: Does Your Face Fit?: The Personal Attributes of a Performance Coach

Part II is all about the characteristics you need to hone to be a Performance Coach and how to begin Performance Coaching at work. Really good, successful coaches share a range of attributes that are core to their coaching. Read this part to find out what qualities you need to develop for successful Performance Coaching. Find out how to build the coaching relationship and establish the ground rules. Consider the impact of body language, motivation, and listening skills. Start to build up a repertoire of more advanced skills that can transform your Performance Coaching.

Here’s where you get to grips with the basics of setting up Performance Coaching to engage people in the most effective way. In this part you consider the stages of Performance Coaching from agreeing a contract, to giving positive feedback and constructive criticism, through to charting progress and managing emotions confidently as you go along. We share some very simple ways of doing things that make all the difference.

Part III: Applying Performance Coaching

In this section, we put Performance Coaching to the test. If you’re gearing up to face some big organisational challenges, this is the part for you. You find out how you can use Performance Coaching as a weapon in the war for talent, as a tool to facilitate change, and as a safety device during organisational turmoil. In this part you contemplate how effective coaching can be in career planning at all stages and in building team effectiveness.

Part IV: Troubleshooting in Performance Coaching

In Part IV we deal with a range of tricky things that can crop up in Performance Coaching. Let’s face it – even if you’ve done all the groundwork, prepared well, and developed the appropriate skills you can still experience obstacles. Personalities clash sometimes. Life in organisations is complicated, with ups and downs, change and uncertainty. In this part you find out how to overcome negativity and deal with strong emotions, difficult relationships, and organisational challenges.

Part V: The Part of Tens

In this part you find a bunch of punchy chapters to contribute to your Performance Coaching excellence and self-development. Even when not Performance Coaching, this section may transform your life!

We also include ten resources to professionalise your Performance Coaching

Icons Used in This Book

A number of icons help you find the juiciest bits of the book.

Throughout the book we use anecdotes to illustrate Performance Coaching in action, and we use this icon to highlight them.

This icon draws your attention to an important point to bear in mind.

Keep your sights on the target for particularly useful shortcuts or hints.

Sometimes you really have to roll up your sleeves and try something. This icon draws your attention to more practical exercises – we hope you have fun with them!

Performance Coaching is pretty exciting stuff and it’s easy to get carried away. This icon asks you to hang on for a minute and think about the consequences of what you’re doing.

Where to Go from Here

Jump right into any part of the book that interests you the most. Have fun. Flick through and dip in wherever takes your fancy – you’re bound to find something useful. For example, if you want to know more about giving useful feedback, turn to Chapter 6. If you’re having problems with an angry colleague, we offer advice in Chapter 13. Above all, enjoy this book, and your Performance Coaching journey!

Part I

Getting to Grips: Introducing Performance Coaching

In this part . . .

In these chapters you begin to get the big picture. This is where you really find out what Performance Coaching is, and can sample some theories and applications. You start thinking more clearly about what you want to achieve and how you can go about it. You also see how to set up and structure your Performance Coaching.

Chapter 1

Coaching for Performance

In This Chapter

Finding out what Performance Coaching is – and isn’t

Ensuring that you’re cut out for the job

Understanding the Performance Coaching process

Applying Performance Coaching in the real world