When Coaching Matters

You have been running an annual talent management conference, others called it “Rating and Ranking”, some called it “HRD conference”. However and whatever you may call it, this is normally the opportunity when the heads of every department sit together and calibrate the performance of their people annually- to discuss potential and identify employee development plans either to improve current performance or plan the next move for high potential employees.

In my more than 20 years of going through this exercise in the HR profession, this initiative seems successful in identifying and planning for the development of 20% of the workforce– which is no brainer. This is an exceptional group- intelligent, people savvy, highly networked, energetic. They will survive with or without training. You only need to provide them the way and they can even surprise you that they can find more and other ways in their career advancement. Because they are so smart, about 90% of the company’s development resources may have been spent for them. Why not? They are preferred by their bosses for external training, international assignments and many business travels. The sad part, after investing for their careers, other companies “headhunt” them! What matters to them is their careers and not your organization!

What about the 80% who have spent their lives in your organization and for lack of a structured career path, became complacent, stayed so long in their current jobs. During your annual reviews, there is hardly any improvement in their performance every year! However, these are your employees who are so loyal to the organization and stayed with you in good times and bad times.

But, isn’t it frustrating that after sending them to training as your initial dose, you come back to the same reviews and still see the same performance results? If we were to review our coaching lessons which of the following will probably work?

1. Advise them to shape up or ship out- managing approach

2. Tell them the importance of their jobs and the need to excel in their respective profession- consulting approach

3. Ask them their current condition, career aspirations and where their future fit into the organization- coaching approach

I once worked with a long tenured leader of the organization and during our conversations, he is fully aware of his performance. He has been on the same job for (20) years- his KPIs over the years are either marginally or just meeting expectations. He has a good team with him but due to lack of strong leadership, the team can hardly make a score. As he is not happy with the current condition in the department, I asked him what his career aspirations are, what the future looks like for him. He asked management that he would like a change in environment and try new ways of doing things. We eventually decided to move him to another location. We were surprised with the results. The new assignment has given him a different perspective, fresh eyes and he was able to deliver completely the opposite results from his previous assignment.

I still believe in the 70-20-10 rule of training effectiveness- 70% on the job, 20% coaching and 10% training. To be successful, coaching really matters and where most us knew but missed doing.

It is still good to take care of your 20% elite group but there may still be 80% of your talent remained untapped and where only coaching can unleash their best potential.

About

The author has over 20 years of leading HR organizations gained from multinational companies- Del Monte, Hitachi, Unilever, Chevron, Atmel and recently Continental Automotive. He is a different breed of HR professional who enjoys using HR metrics to achieve business results and developing leaders to teach leadership to their people as key to organizational effectiveness. He believes that the rise and fall of every organization depends on the leader. Good leaders means less people issues and HR can be more strategic in contributing to the organization’s success.

Coaching is key to organizational effectiveness. While many organizations tend to focus their development efforts to 20% of their workforce who are top performers, the potential of the 80% of the talent may remained to be uncovered unless diligent coaching is driven by the organization.