Coaching and Facilitating Professional Development
Kevin R. ThomasManager, Training & Development
Objectives
• You’ll learn to:– Use active listening skills
– Facilitate learning conversations that increase employee competence and capacity
– Help people learn from experience
– Evaluate employee potential
– Shape roles and assignments around strengths
– Provide challenging assignments to facilitate individual development
– Conduct a stay interview
– Help employees create a professional development plan
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Agenda
• Listening Exercise
• Facilitating Learning Conversations
• Using a 9 Box
• BREAK
• Strengths Story Interview Format
• Stay Interview Format
• Professional Development Planning
Agenda
• Listening Exercise
• Facilitating Learning Conversations
• Using a 9 Box
• BREAK
• Strengths Story Interview Format
• Stay Interview Format
• Professional Development Planning
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Creating A Listening Container
• Confidential space
• Time boundaries
• Minimize distractions
• Agree on norms
– Confidentiality (always limited)?
– What kind of help are you looking for?
– Ok to interrupt to ask clarifying questions?
Basic Listening Skills
• Increasing Empathy and Trustlynda.com, Communication Fundamentals, John Ullment
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Active Listening Skills
• Minimal Encouragements– Non verbal cues that you are listening– Verbal cues that you are listening “Oh?”, “Mm hmm”, “Right.”
etc.
• Paraphrasing• Emotional Labeling
– I get the sense that you are feeling X. Am I right about that?
• Mirroring (or Reflecting)– Echoing words or phrases
• Open‐ended questions• Pauses
Dangers of Advice Giving
• Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them.Khalil Gibran
• When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.Henri Nouwen
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Listening Exercise
1. Pair Off2. Decide who will listen first3. Agree on any norms you want to have for the
conversation, which may include confidentiality4. Speaker:
Talk about a challenge you are facing in your jobListener: a) How can you keep the other person talking? b) How can you contain the temptation to give advice? How can
you show that you:i. Get the personii. Get the situationiii. Get the path to progress
Agenda
• Listening Exercise
• Facilitating Learning Conversations
• Using a 9 Box
• BREAK
• Strengths Story Interview Format
• Stay Interview Format
• Professional Development Planning
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Change Your Questions,Change Your Life
Ask Switching Questions
• If you’re managing someone who is in Judger, ask:
Where would you rather be?
What else can you think about this?
What is the other person thinking, feeling, and wanting?
Is this the hill you want to die on?
What choices do you have?
What are the facts?
How can you get where you want to go?
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Q‐Storming
• When your employee is stuck on a challenge:
– Introduce them to the choice map
– Pick a goal for the Q‐storm
– Ask them to generate learner questions about the challenge
– Cluster and analyze the questions
– Which questions have the most punch to them? Which ones seem most worth exploring?
Q‐Storming Example
• Read “Q‐Storming in Practice”
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Q-Storming in Practice
Jane, a senior manager at an IT firm, attended a Q-Storming workshop. She was quick to
volunteer when I asked who needed a breakthrough. She described a situation with Leslie, a
highly-paid employee in her department. Leslie had been underperforming for almost two years
in a position the company had created three years earlier in response to an emergency.
Jane had excellent coaching skills. She had worked hard with Leslie to improve her performance
but to no avail. Jane didn’t want to fire Leslie, a loyal employee who had done well for the first
year in her present role. In fact, prior to being placed in this position, she had done well for
several years.
Here’s the Q-Storming goal I worked out with Jane: to discover a solution that will be satisfying
and beneficial for Leslie, the company and Jane. The other participants generated 43 questions,
hoping for ones that Jane hadn’t asked herself previously. As usual, the more obvious questions
came first, such as: “How can I get better at coaching Leslie? What am I missing about Leslie
that would make a difference? What will help me feel better about myself as a manager and
coach?”
Finally, someone came up with a question that caused Jane to nearly jump out of her seat: “Does
the company still need this role, since it was created to address an emergency that happened
three years ago?” “I never thought of that!” Jane exclaimed. Her assumption that she was dealing
with a performance problem was what had kept her stuck. She had never considered that this
might be an organisational problem, so she hadn’t questioned whether Leslie’s role was still
necessary. It wasn’t, and there was another position where Leslie could be reassigned.
Excerpted from “Stop brainstorming, Start Q-Storming” by Marilee Adams, retrieved from:
http://www.empowermagazine.com.au/stop-brainstorming-start-q-storming/ 5/20/14
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Q‐Storm Exercise
• Volunteer: Describe a leadership challenge you’re facing right now.
• Group: Feedback only in the form of learning path questions.
Agenda
• Listening Exercise
• Facilitating Learning Conversations
• Using a 9 Box
• BREAK
• Strengths Story Interview Format
• Stay Interview Format
• Professional Development Planning
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9 Box
9 Box
12
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
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9 Box Management Tips
In coaching and talent management, the value of the 9-box grid is to identify when coaching or a
change in job or responsibilities may be needed. It may not be valuable to the organization to
spend time and effort in attempting to salvage an individual with low potential and poor
performance. However, an individual with low potential but effective performance may need to
be engaged or motivated in his or her current job.
Performance D
W Potential
5 2 1
8 6 3
9 7 4
# Tips for Managing
1. Provide challenges, encourage cross training, conduct a stay interview, create a
retention plan.
2. Does extremely well at current job with potential to do more; give stretch assignments
to help prepare for next level.
3. Current role may still provide opportunity for growth/development; focused on tactical;
focus should be on helping improve strategic thinking.
4. Experienced high performer but has reached limit of career potential. Focus on
appreciation, eliminate red tape, provide good tools and resources.
5. Seasoned professional capable of expanded role, but may be experiencing problems
that require coaching and mentoring. Provide regular, clear feedback, conduct
strengths story interview. Check for personal problems that may be stressors.
6. May be considered for job enlargement at the same level, but may need coaching in
several areas, including people management. Collaborate to create professional
development plan.
7. Effective performer, but may have reached career potential. Coach as necessary to
improve performance.
8. With coaching, could progress within level; focus on stretch goals for this employee.
9. Consider reassignment, reclassification to a lower level or exit from the organization.
Adapted from: “Succession Planning: What is a 9-box grid?” Society for Human Resources
Professionals, retrieved from:.
http://www.shrm.org/templatestools/hrqa/pages/whatsa9boxgridandhowcananhrdepartmentuseit.
aspx on May 20, 2014.
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9 Box Worksheet
For each of your direct reports, identify which box they may be in, and create a strategy for
working with them.
Employee Box # Management Plan
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Agenda
• Listening Exercise
• Facilitating Learning Conversations
• Using a 9 Box
• BREAK
• Strengths Story Interview Format
• Stay Interview Format
• Professional Development Planning
Agenda
• Listening Exercise
• Facilitating Learning Conversations
• Using a 9 Box
• BREAK
• Strengths Story Interview Format
• Stay Interview Format
• Professional Development Planning
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The Flow State: Managing for Engagement
Employees are at their best when:• They’re using their strengths• They have clear goals• They’re being challenged
Getting to Know Your Employee’s Strengths
• Pair up.• Interviewee:
– Think of a time when you felt “in the zone” at work: at your best, giving the best of what you have to offer, plugged in, etc.
• Interviewer:– Use your listening skills– Reflect back what you are hearing– Show appreciation for their unique strengths– Help the person to clarify exactly what strengths were at work in
this story– Help the person create an action plan for how they can use
those strengths one more time.
• Switch!
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Agenda
• Listening Exercise
• Facilitating Learning Conversations
• Using a 9 Box
• BREAK
• Strengths Story Interview Format
• Stay Interview Format
• Professional Development Planning
The Stay Interview
• Defined: An interview that identifies and then reinforces the factors that drive an employee to stay. It also identifies and minimizes any “triggers” that might cause them to consider quitting.
• For the talent you want to keep
• Employee feels valued and heard
• Helps you understand their motivations
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Agenda
• Listening Exercise
• Facilitating Learning Conversations
• Using a 9 Box
• BREAK
• Strengths Story Interview Format
• Stay Interview Format
• Professional Development Planning
Professional Development Planning
1. In very concrete behavioral terms, describe what you want your employee to:
– START doing
– STOP doing
– KEEP doing
2. With your employee, brainstorm what experiences, training and resources can help.
3. Create a plan with SMART goals.
4. Evaluate progress.
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Prof. Development Planning for High Potential Employees
1. With your employee, collaborate to create a vision of what role the employee could play in the future.
2. Identify what skill sets and competencies would be required to play that role.
3. With your employee, brainstorm what experiences, training and resources can help.
4. Create a plan with SMART goals.
5. Evaluate progress.
Thanks!
Kevin R. ThomasManager, Training & Development
Coaching and Professional Development Page 28
Professional Development Plan
Lucy has the habit of bringing problems to her supervisor Susan without identifying any possible course of
action, seeming to expect Susan to solve the problems for her …
Goal
Express in concrete behavioral
terms what the employee will be
able to do.
Action Plan
Describe resources, support, and training that will be used
to develop this capacity.
Due
Date
Example: Pro-actively develop
and present proposals to solve
business problems.
1:1 coaching with supervisor
Performance improvement management online
certificate course.
Lynda.com “Solving Business Problems” course
12/31/14
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