|
Coaching, counselling and providing inspiring
feedback |
We have probably all had experiences
of feedback that left us feeling confused and incompetent.
Hopefully we have also had the experience of feedback
that, although offering suggestions for improvement,
left us feeling inspired and motivated.
|
Who Should Take This Course? |
Feedback is a critical, though sometimes
neglected, aspect of business performance. Without
it, people can potentially spend the year between
their annual performance reviews not growing or
improving. Yet it’s something that many managers
dread and reserve for when things have really gone
wrong. As for coaching, well, does anyone have the
time?
Fear of failure, rejection or looking stupid can
be the biggest barrier to leaving our comfort zone.
Coaching and feedback that reinforces even small
successes creates an environment where we feel safer
in taking the risk to push our performance.
This course is designed for people who are in a
position to give feedback or coaching to others,
so they can integrate this as a natural part of
their daily interactions with their teams. You will
learn how to excel both in giving feedback to your
teams and to yourself (we are often our own strongest
critic).
|
How Does It Work? |
- Outcomes: the steps in developing a
clear outcome for the feedback / coaching /
counselling, before meeting the employee.
- Meta-Programmes: identify the “software”
the employee is running in their brain, so you
know, for example, whether you need to operate
from a “beating stick” or “golden
carrot” perspective. You may also find
it useful to understand whether the person has
an internal or external (needing others' feedback)
reference system for assessing their own performance.
- Language: People process information
through their senses and this affects how they
communicate. Many people use highly visual language,
while others use auditory or kinaesthetic communication
styles. Learn how to identify your preferred
style and develop more flexibility with other
people’s styles to avoid that sense of
“speaking different languages” in
a coaching and counselling environment.
- Immediacy: the unconscious mind responds
to feedback received within 5 minutes of an
event or behaviour. This feedback is then integrated
at a deep level and leads to an automatic improvement
in performance. After this 5 minute point, feedback
is received consciously. This means it is subject
to more filtering and rationalisation and the
employee has to “remember” to change
their behaviour.
- Positive: it may sound obvious, but
much feedback is given negatively – telling
people what they didn’t do or what they
did wrong. Managers will learn how to leave
an employee feeling motivated and inspired by
using simple techniques to change “you
did that wrong” into “I want you
to do more of X and less of Y”. This skill
is best taught at a conscious and unconscious
level, as it is likely that managers have habits
they will need to break.
- Anchoring: managers will become aware
of how to deliberately anchor* positive feedback
as a future resource; they will learn tools
to help someone integrate feedback at a below
conscious level and find out how to avoid accidentally
anchoring negative experiences for an employee.
* An anchor is a stimulus that
provokes an automatic, unconscious response
(Pavlov). In the feedback context, it may be
a handshake, a pat on the shoulder or even a
manager’s tone of voice. Anchors are often
created accidentally and can be positive or
negative.
|
The Benefits |
By removing any risk of “blame”
from feedback, we can encourage, motivate and inspire
our teams (and ourselves) to reach our true potential.
This creates an environment where people feel safer,
moving outside their comfort zones.
By making feedback and coaching part of our natural
working behaviour, we can produce leaps in performance,
more quickly, with less effort.
Annual performance reviews become easier, because
feedback is given regularly.
|
| Back to top |
|
|
