Coaching Programs
It has been said that coaching individuals and teams is the most critical role of a manager in business today. The success of the people and teams depend on the coaching ability of their managers.
Coaching can be defined as a process used to guide people and teams to achieve successful results; to help improve performance, to strengthen specific knowledge/skills and to modify/change certain attitudes/behaviors.
Typically coaching has been viewed as something to be done with poor performers ("C" Players) and top performers ("A" Players). Unfortunately it is the middle performers ("B" Players) who are often neglected. Middle performers ("B" Players) are the backbone of every organization and typically make up 70% of an organizations workforce. It is therefore critical for managers to focus on and coach "B" Players to improve their overall performance and productivity.
A manager's ability to coach effectively is dependent upon learning and mastering a coaching methodology and adopting a coaching mindset. The synergy of both produces extraordinary results. Coaching in essence is about "Connecting People and Teams to their Greatness." BreakThroughs, Inc.'s Coaching to "Greatness" Programs builds managers' confidence and expands their capacity to coach people to accomplish immediate as well as long-term results.
Assessment
Benchmarking Competencies & Measuring Results
BreakThroughs, Inc. offers a series of assessment tools that not only examine core competencies necessary for success, but also examine the way people think, behave and apply skills in the work environment. Assessments identify individual strengths and reveal areas for improvement. They help shape each Coaching to “Greatness” Program and identify solutions that will produce the best results.
Several assessment tools are utilized by BreakThroughs, Inc. to help each manager gain maximum benefit from their training experience. These tools help the manager to better understand their own very unique strengths as well as those areas in need of development. Once the program is completed each manager is reassessed to measure the impact of how they applied what they learned to positively improve performance and impact bottom line results.
Manager as Coach
Maximizing On-The-Job Performance & Results
Managers are responsible for increasing the level of performance and productivity of their people. Some people need guidance, some need sharper skills, and some need confrontation to change behaviors. Coaching connects people to the areas where they need to improve and demonstrates a manager's caring and interest in the individual's success.
Coaching is an investment in people. When it is used effectively, coaching results in improved performance. With practice, it becomes natural, and the outcomes far exceed what could reasonably be expected from it. The art of coaching is in knowing how to approach each individual, what strategies to use to gain their agreement, what methods to use for follow through, and how to hold people accountable.
Coaching the Middle
How to Engage and Motivate "B" Players
"B" Players (aka middle performers) are the backbone of every organization. While high and low performers get most of the attention, middle performers typically make-up 70% of the workforce, and are critical to an organization's success. But too often, they're taken for granted and underutilized. Too many managers just don't know what to do with "B" Players, what they're capable of, or how to engage/motivate them. And too many managers fail to ask "can middle performers become high performers, and if so, how?"
This program was developed to help managers to focus on and improve the performance and productivity of their "B" Players. The "B" Players represent the pool of people who can most dramatically boost the profits and long term success of an organization.
DISC Personality Style Profile
Working Together With Style
What makes people act and communicate as they do? What makes one person focus on facts while another focuses on the big picture? What makes one person embrace teamwork while another person prefers to work alone? What makes one person act quickly while another person takes time to analyze the situation?
Understanding different personality styles and how to communicate more effectively with them is at the core of becoming an effective coach, team player and individual contributor.
If we could recommend one foundational program for managers and teams to complete, this would be it! The profile provides a starting point for people to gain insight into themselves and build productive business relationships.
The Heart of Coaching
Providing Feedback that has an Impact
Feedback has long been recognized as an essential coaching skill. When done well, feedback enhances learning, modifies behavior, improves performance and strengthens relationships. When done poorly it can foster mistrust, apathy, anger and retaliation. The impact of feedback has also been the subject of considerable research over the years. Consequently, much is known about what makes feedback effective and ineffective.
Feedback in simple terms may be regarded as either motivational or developmental. The purpose of both is to maximize the potential of the person being coached, to raise their awareness of strengths and areas for improvement and identify actions to be taken to improve performance.
It is a well accepted fact that feedback directs behavior and motivates performance at work – no matter how good or effective an individual is, they can always improve.
Conflict Management
Strategies To Skillfully Manage Conflict
Conflict is an inescapable part of our daily lives, an inevitable result of an ever changing, highly competitive business world. Each of us perceives conflict differently, both in our personal relationships and our business interactions. Some people welcome it, while others find conflict uncomfortable and avoid it.
Unfortunately, avoiding un-managed conflict can produce stress, lower morale, damage relationships, teamwork and decrease productivity. Therefore, the first step toward becoming more effective at resolving conflict is to understand that skillfully managed conflict can be positive and healthy. It can promote cooperation, produce harmony, strengthen relationships and teamwork. It can also be used as a tool to coach people, improve performance, and increase productivity.
Experiential Learning Activities
"What man hears, he may doubt;
what he sees, he may possibly doubt,
but what he does/experiences,
he cannot doubt".
- Seaman A. Knapp
At BreakThroughs, Inc. we create programs and exercises that are custom designed to communicate learning objectives in unique ways. We have discovered that people learn best when they enjoy the process of learning and when they feel that the information is relevant to them. Each exercise is designed to reinforce key learning points in a fresh, dynamic way. In every case, exercises are built around your company's needs and aligned with your objectives.
Reinforcement & Follow Up
Profiting From an Investment in Training
The most commonly recognized strategy to improve performance and increase productivity is training.
Training consists of instructional experiences designed to develop new skills and knowledge that are expected to be applied immediately upon (or within a short time after) return to the job.
Do organizations get full value for their investments in training? That is, is the training they pay for fully transferred to the job? This brings us to a very important definition.
Transfer of training is the effective and continuing application, by managers to their jobs, of the knowledge and skills gained in the training.
This means that managers apply all they learned in training to their jobs, at least as well as they could demonstrate those skills at the end of the training program. Full transfer of training also means that with practice on the job, the level of skill with which that learning is applied will increase beyond the level demonstrated at the end of the training program.
The objective of Reinforcement & Follow-Up is to help and support managers to effectively apply to the job the knowledge and skills learned and to demonstrate how continuous application will positively impact bottom line results.
