PERFORMANCE COACHING

WHAT IS A PERFORMANCE COACH?

Performance coaches are change experts who help people take responsibility for their lives and inspire action to maximize each person’s potential. It’s like having a personal trainer for every area of your life. 

A good coach will unlock your limitless potential to maximize your growth. A performance coach will guide you or your team from where you are toward the greater competence and fulfillment you desire.

WHEN DO YOU USE A PERFORMANCE COACH?

This is a tough question to answer.  Our founder, Ben Newman, has worked with a performance coach for most of his professional life.  Most high performing athletes and executives work with performance coaches full time, and that is one of the ways they achieve peak performance.

The right time to start using a performance coach is when you’re ready to do it.  It’s hard to talk someone into using a performance coach if their mind isn’t in the right place.  If you’re not ready to open your mind and put yourself in a vulnerable position, it will be tough to maximize your outcomes with a performance coach.

Our suggestion is to have a discovery call and open your mind for at least an hour.  This process will help you start to identify if you’re ready to hire someone.  It will also allow you to start vetting performance coaches that you may hire in the future.

WHAT DOES THE PROCESS OF PERFORMANCE COACHING LOOK LIKE?

In order to get the best outcomes from working with a performance coach, you should understand the process is takes to maximize your chances of success.

Below are the steps of the process of working with a high-skill level performance coach.

1. Have a discovery call.  This is extremely important when choosing a performance coach.  You need to understand if they are a fit for your personality, and you can’t do that without having an initial call and more importantly, time to think about your discussion.  Our suggestion is to schedule a time to speak with a performance coach to get a great understanding of their background and skill level.  From there you can begin to set expectations on both sides regarding the goals you’re looking to achieve.
2. Identify goals.  Identifying goals typically happens two ways.
   1. Personal.  This is where you identify where you are and where you want to be.  It’s a great exercise to go through as your coach will help you think through down to the micro nuances of your goals.  
   2. Professional. Discuss your current job and what you love and what you hate.  From there you can dive in as deeply as you need based on the biggest needs you have.  This process takes a bit of time as you really need to bring your coach up to speed  on your strengths and weaknesses.
3. Create a plan.  Lastly is taking all of your discovery and goals and putting it into a plan you can track and hold yourself accountable to.  This is an evolving process and will change as your habits and thought process change.  It’s amazing to see the difference between the first stage action plan and how it’s evolved after 12 months of working with a performance coach.  Especially when you work with a performance coach with an extremely high-skill level focused on improving outcomes.

HOW CAN COACHING IMPROVE JOB PERFORMANCE?

This is a great question.

Many businesses overlook the personal aspects of management which typically results in continued internal cultural issues.  

There are two ways coaching will improve job performance.  

1. Leadership performance.  Coaching leaders will help them identify how to best connect with their team and how they can improve their relationships in the workplace.  Specifically, how to better understand the mindset of their team which ends up improving performance because the team feels empowered.  Leaders are able to take the lessons and apply the principals to their respective team members.
2. Employee performance.  One of the greatest ways performance coaching can impact employees and improve their job performance in the workplace is by connecting them to their internal burn.  The driving force behind what wakes them up everyday.  This may sound cliche, but at the end of the day, business and life is all about relationships.  Understanding your team and building relationships takes time, but the leaders who make this a priority often have the highest performing teams.

It takes time for coaching to start changing the behaviors of leaders and employees, therefor it’s something that should be an ongoing practice.  Hiring a performance coach in the workplace is a common practice in high performing organizations because they know it’s part of the silver bullet for success.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF A WORKPLACE PERFORMANCE COACH FOR COMPANY LEADERS?

A performance coach gives a leader in an organization the opportunity to step back and “break down the game film” of what makes he or she a successful leader.  And, what is working best within the organization.

Too many times in business leaders are consumed with the daily grind and don’t take the time to come up for air and evaluate.

Identifying the process that drives success will empower the leader to inspire others to continue to choose the right daily disciplines and behaviors one day at a time.  

A performance coach will also highlight gaps current leaders have in their management style that would be a benefit to the overall organization if offloaded to the performance coach.

This type of identifying behavioral gaps and delegating correctly can have massive impacts on results and company culture, allowing the leader to excel at doing what they love most.

BENEFITS OF A WORKPLACE PERFORMANCE COACH FOR EMPLOYEES

A performance coach for employees provides them the opportunity to step back and analyze their strengths and determine if their daily behaviors are aligned with the companies goals as outlined by their leadership team.

Far too often when organizations are focused on growth, things become transactional and results focused. 

A performance coach gives them the opportunity to identify the behaviors which drives the results and allows the  team to delegate those behaviors to the team members most qualified to excel in those areas.

It’s definitely a transformational experience which leads to stronger outcomes and performance at a high-skill level.  

The goal for a performance coach working with a group of employees should be to create long term sustainable behaviors which are an indicator of long term success of the organization.