This course is intended for managers who want to (a.) improve the performance of a failing employee, or (b.) help a successful employee prepare for a next level of responsibility. The course shows managers how to determine the reasons why the worker’s present performance is not meeting standards, figure out a remedy for that, give the subordinate honest feedback, and win that person’s commitment to remedial effort. A key feature of the course consists of learning how to give another person feedback in a non-threatening way.

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PURPOSE OF THE WORKSHOP: This workshop is intended to help managers and supervisors improve the performance of their team members by showing them, in a hands-on everyday work environment, how to perform new tasks and functions, or to remediate previously learned skills that they are for any reason presently struggling with.

CONTENT OF THE WORKSHOP: Workshop participants learn these things:

  • The major reasons why people fail to perform.
  • What things to question and examine before coaching sessions begin.
  • How to enlist the person being coached as an active partner in that process.
  • The sequence of steps in an effective coaching session.
  • The elements of authentic and helpful feedback.
  • How to give feedback and how to receive it.
  • Keeping up performance momentum after early coaching sessions.

METHODOLOGY OF THE WORKSHOP: Participants learn tools and techniques in short lecturettes. They then have an opportunity to practice the skills they have learned in a variety of role plays, cases, and other problems and exercises. The workshop is highly interactive and involving.

WORKSHOP LOGISTICS: The workshop is a half a day in length. An ideal class size is 18 to 24 people. The workshop is designed for anyone who manages people or projects, and who from time to time is called on to directly teach job skills or improve on-the-job performance.

WORKSHOP ACTIVITIES: Here’s what happens during the course:
  1. Participants are asked to list the kinds of performance problems or enhancements they encounter in their team members on a day-to-day basis.

  2. They then learn an 8-point model for deciding what kinds of performance problems merit on-the-job coaching attention, which ones are best addressed by other solutions, and what those solutions should be.

  3. Next, participants learn how to analyze a specific performance problem to determine what kind of coaching intervention they should make. They get a practice exercise at this task.

  4. Next, participants learn about the characteristics and elements of effective performance feedback. They learn how to give it and how to receive it.

  5. Next, participants learn a 12-step process for conducting a coaching session. They get practice at this by role- playing real world situations developed in item #1, above. They receive feedback on their performance at this process from other workshop participants, and from the instructor.

  6. Next, participants learn how to deal with problem people and resistant subordinates. There is another round of role plays at this point, with classroom feedback as before.

  7. Then participants learn how to follow up on the coaching session to make sure that new behaviors and skills are in fact being learned and used.

  8. Finally, participants learn (if they make no progress in improving the performance of a failing employee) how to proceed in the direction of (a.) disciplinary interviews, and/or (b.) termination.

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