The annual performance appraisal is an opportunity to enhance
employee performance and create greater success for the company
and the individual. My intent is to explore how coaching skills
can be used in creating a good performance appraisal experience
for both the employee and the supervisor and how to keep good
performance going throughout the year. As a manager for 18 years
my experience was that performance appraisals were a tense time
for the employee and the supervisor. In either position, for me
it often felt uncomfortable, so how do we reframe it so that it
is a good experience for both?
Start With Vision:
It's important to start with vision: the company's and the
employee's. What is the company vision? The company vision
should be compelling and known by staff. When staff don't know
the owner's vision for the company it is hard for them to help
move it forward. Having a clear and compelling vision that
employees can buy into provides a foundation for success.
But what drives the individual isn't the bosses vision, the
company's vision, but their own compelling vision.
1. Employees can embrace the company vision but...
2. True success comes from within and from personal vision
3. Personal vision should be compelling and tie into the
company vision
4. Do you know your employees dreams and visions for their
lives and career
Take Time To Create A Vision:
If the employee hasn't thought about their vision, take the time
to create a vision with them. Does their vision, their passion
tie into the company vision? Can you as the supervisor help the
employee to achieve their vision? What if their vision is your
job? Well, that's great. As supervisors, managers and leaders
part of our role is mentoring and developing our employees. It's
great to have employees that are motivated to learn and grow.
It's also great to have employees that know your job and can do
it competently.
Compelling visions are personal, written in the present tense, as
if... they are happening now, and point to an exciting future.
Encourage your staff to write their own compelling vision and
share it with you.
Our Current Appraisal Framework:
Often the manager talks about issues that the employee didn't
know was coming. Today we are talking about how to reframe the
experience for both the employee and the manager. With the
manager as a coach and partner committed to the employee's
success the environment can shift. The goal is to reframe the
experience, creating a positive, goal oriented environment that
thrives on success and enhancing performance. In working with
many groups of people solving problems, when they focused on what
was going well and built upon it they were more successful than
when they worked on what the problems were that they were having
and what they needed to improve. In focusing on solutions, they
ultimately identified the things that needed improvement as well.
It's important to recognize your feelings about performance
appraisals and to imagine the employee's perspective.
1. History of being an uncomfortable experience
2. Reframe the experience & create a positive, goal oriented
environment that thrives on success, enhancing performance
3. An opportunity to tune into the person and find out what
is going on with them
4. Create a plan for the upcoming year.
5. Most individuals (most employees) want to be successful
Use Coaching Skills to Develop Success And Excellence:
Where are we at now? After you have created a compelling vision,
find out where we are at right now, using five key coaching
questions you can quickly get to where the employee is at. In
these questions you have the opportunity to create powerful
positive energy, find out what the gaps are and what the
resources needed are. In talking about what would be ideal you
are also focusing a bit back on the vision, but you are also
pointing in the direction that you need to go- so how do we get
there?
1. When meeting with a staff member:
* Be present
* Tune into them and tune out everything else
* See their greatness
2. Use Five Coaching Questions:
* What's going right?
* What makes it right?
* What is it that would be ideal
* What's not quite right yet?
* What resources do you need?
As the supervisor, I see my role as one of supporting my staff
so that they can do their job, I'm their coach, their success
partner and the person that is helping to get them the resources
they need to do their job. As the director of an outdoor center,
my job was to get the clients there, but it was also to make sure
that our resources were there for the client, we had the
infrastructure we needed to provide the service- the ropes
course, trained staff, food for meals... ..
Create A Plan For Excellent Performance:
You, the supervisor become the partner or the coach - coaching
for success. In creating a plan focused on success for the
employee, the manager begins to shift the paradigm to one of
employee and coach/partner. As supervisors, our role is build
successful teams and we have to have successful team members in
order to do that. If we focus on creating success we are more
likely to create it. Focus on the positive, the solutions.
What's going right, how do we create more of it? In working with
teams I have found that when I focus on what they are doing well
and how we do more of it - we build on our success.
When we create goals that are SMART, we can measure them, and
track their progress. If goals are soft, not measurable it
becomes difficult to progress the plan or give any feedback.
So, how do we make them measurable? Measurable is countable,
how many, when, who?
Goal Planning:
* Goals tie into the company vision and the employees vision.
* Goals Point to an exciting future.
* They are positive, specific, measurable, attainable, relevant
and time bounded
Tips for setting goals:
* Start with the RESULT in mind.
* Set SMART goals.
* Make it easy to see the next steps.
SMART Goals
SMART Goals have certain attributes that make them measurable.
When you can measure the goal you then know if you are attaining
it. Goals should be results or outcome oriented and not process
oriented.
1. Specific:
* Has clear deliverables or results
2. Measurable:
* Can be counted: how many? How much? Who?
3. Attainable:
* Can be attained at least 80%
4. Relevant:
* Important to the people you serve, your future viability
and relevant to your vision and values.
5. Time-Bounded:
* Think big, but it's a 12 month plan, an annual plan.
For example:
My partner works for a yacht club, maintaining their fleet of
boats, so he might have a goal of refurbishing 3 boats this
winter, including hull, topsides, interior and undersides.
Another example could be:
A sales staff might have a sales goal such as increasing
personal sales by 20% during the year.
Or The CEO might have a goal of hire 4 new staff.
Annual goals are typically big. It's important to break them
down into smaller steps. Refurbishing three sailboats is big,
1 boat per month over the course of the winter becomes more
manageable.
But the sales goal - can also be the foundation for creating a
plan to accomplish the goal. How are you going to accomplish it?
1. Certain number of cold calls
2. A systematic follow-up plan for each lead
3. Direct mail, advertising - what are the specifics that are
going to create the success?
Build In Accountability:
Building in accountability in your annual success plans is the
key to success. How many performance appraisals have you had or
have you done, that didn't get looked at until the next year?
You need to meet with people regularly and reviewing the goals.
It's unfair to come at a staff person at the end of the year and
say you didn't accomplish what we outlined in your plan. Yes,
you can accomplish some things just by writing down the goal, but
the level of accomplishment is usually lower than what we want in
our companies.
1. The key to success is building in accountability through
regular meetings, weekly or monthly
2. We often fall short on keeping a plan alive
3. Regular meetings that keep focus on the plan and keep it moving
forward.
4. Celebrate success, write down accomplishments, build on success
Monthly Accountability:
Meet with staff at least monthly and review the plan. Bringing
out the plan and talking about it, keeps it alive. If it is
never mentioned it gives staff the impression that it wasn't that
important and they don't need to work on the goals outlined.
Remember the goals outlined are focused on creating better
results for the company. You want that. Focus on the plan.
At the monthly meeting spend time to:
1. Review the vision
2. Review the accomplishments (What's going right?)
3. Review the goals
4. Score each goal - give it a percentage 60%; 85%
5. When a goal is falling short use coaching skills to help
figure out what the problem is and how to change it.
6. Does the leadership need to shift to provide more supervision,
training, direction... .?
You are looking for success of at least 80%. If the person is in
their own way, do they need to make a shift in their feelings,
beliefs, paradigm, to move forward and get themselves out of the
way. Are they choosing not to make the necessary shift. It's an
opportunity to talk about choices that we make. We each operate
from a place of personal responsibility. We are responsible for
ourselves, our actions.
1. Measurable goals can be scored
2. Score the goals each month
3. If the goal is below 80% talk about what's in the way?
Is the individual in their own way?
4. Go back to the five coaching questions:
Create A Partnership:
The monthly review of the PLAN gives you the opportunity to
really check-in with staff and support them in developing
success. It also prevents the annual performance review dread.
They know you are invested in their success as well as that of
the company. This is powerful. It develops you as a leader and
partner of the staff member and lets you know where the focus
needs to be. It also creates a regular stream of communication-
both ways that can only improve results. Use the five coaching
questions:
1. What's going right?
2. What makes it right?
3. What's the ideal, the vision?
4. What's not quite right now?
5. What are the resources needed?
Coach them to succeed.
Handling Poor Performance:
I believe that coaching skills can help you as a supervisor
create better success. When there is poor performance the
coaching questions give you an opportunity to build success. But
you have also built a framework for having real conversations.
We are all adults, and we each have personal responsibility and
make choices about our behavior. If you do you discipline or
progressive discipline in your organization you need to have a
clear policy on it and employees need to be informed of the
policy. They also need to know the expectations and job
responsibilities. And with that foundation believe you can have
real conversations about their behavior and choices and the
position it puts you in. Your behavior as a supervisor is a
consequence of their behavior.
I've had this conversation with staff in a union shop, in a
supervisory session that involved poor performance. It went
something like: Fred, you have great skills and talents that we
see here, and you also know why we're here - you didn't show up
for work and you didn't call, it's considered a no show/no call.
It puts me in a position where I have to take action, and if it
continues then I have to continue taking actions. You are
responsible for you and you are making choices for how you handle
your position.
And in having these conversations - it's important to remember
that our goal is success and the employee's goal is to be
successful also. Employee retention is important to everyone.
1. Go back to the coaching questions - it gets them talking about
what is going right, what their vision for success is and what
is in their way.
2. Help staff to identify limiting behaviors, how they are in
their own way, and shift their paradigms to get out of the
way.
To Create the Success You Want; Keep Focused On Your Goals
Staying focused on your goals and those of your employees keeps
the momentum going. As the supervisor you can create a positive
and encouraging environment and create a performance culture.
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