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Station managers and other execs have a multitude of responsibilities: having a vision for the organization, setting and maintaining performance standards, supervising subordinates, hiring and firing, compensation planning and many others. And being a coach – although a lot of managers may not think of themselves in that way.
Coaching talent and other employees is a special role. With all of the responsibilities a market manager has, figuring out when coaching is needed can be challenging.
Coaching is particularly suitable when:
- An individual has the required skills and talents, but whose performance is lackluster.
- A professional with excellent technical skills does not have the necessary interpersonal skills.
- A new hire or recently promoted person is not meeting expectations.
- There is a rapid downturn in the productivity and quality of the work being done.
In each instance, the executive has a decision to make about how the employee should be approached.
The exec can give him or her a pep talk, a lecture, a threat, an order or coaching.
I suggest the your first conversation with this employee should be seen as a coaching assignment.
Let’s look at what might be happening in each of the situations described above.
When a performance is lackluster, possible explanations might include:
- Problems that are not work related but interfere with concentration and motivation.
- A negative workplace incident that still is very troubling to the employee.
- Too much work, too little life outside of work.
- A high level of worries about the way he or management and colleagues are seeing her.
The technically proficient professional with poor people skills might:
- Be overly demanding of colleagues and subordinates.
- Not know how to talk to people.
- Be inexperienced in leading or working as part of a team.
- Not fully understand the interpersonal requirements of the job.
Some possible issues a new hire or recently promoted person might have include:
A lack of clarity of performance goals.
- Pushing too hard to demonstrate that management made the right hiring or promotion choice.
- Unrealistic expectations of himself or herself and others.
- Feeling excluded from the social aspects of the station’s culture.
- Being treated differently than before the promotion.
When there is a rapid downturn in productivity and the quality of the work, something significant is going on for the employee, like:
- A loss or pending loss.
- An escalation of drug and alcohol consumption.
- An episode of major depression.
- A family problem that is constantly interfering with time at work.
- A work-related problem that has not been addressed.
What’s going on with Cynthia?
Cynthia has worked for the station for five years, selling advertising time. She’s been a high performer until the last few months. Lately, a lot of things have changed. She’s not as active in selling, she’s more disorganized and she doesn’t really seem to care that much.
She’s had an excellent working relationship with her boss and colleagues, but lately seems more irritable and negative. Usually personable and friendly, she’s been more and more isolated from her colleagues. She isn’t talking to station personnel about work … or much else.
She appears to have suddenly gained quite a bit of weight, and seems not to have as much energy as usual.
Cynthia reports to Jake, the Market Sales Manager. He knows something must be going on with her, but he doesn’t know what that might be or how to approach her to address the situation. Her poor performance is reflecting badly on him. He doesn’t want to lose her since she’s been so productive in the past. However, he knows the situation can’t go on indefinitely.
He schedules a meeting with her to try to find out what’s happening and come up with a plan both he and she can agree on.
What Jake should avoid doing:
Jake might decide that it’s up to Cynthia to turn things around. So he can list the ways her performance has declined.
He might give her a pep talk or lay down the law. He could throw his weight around, telling her in no uncertain terms to shape up or ship out.
He would do all the talking, giving Cynthia no opportunity to explain what’s been happening in her life or figure out a way to change the situation.
Those tactics are unlikely to work. She certainly knows her productivity has slipped. She’s putting a lot of pressure on herself. She is likely respond to such strong statements defensively or simply clam-up. Her attitude and motivation could get worse, and Jake probably will need to let her go. Jake loses and she loses. The station loses.
What Jake should do:
Jake knows that things need to improve or she’ll have to go. Having her leave just creates other problems. Who could take her place, how long would the training period be and would the new hire be able to handle the job?
He believes Cynthia is worth working with to improve her performance. Jake wants to salvage Cynthia. He is clear that he wants to be helpful. However, he recognizes that he can’t solve all her problems.
Through asking questions in a way that welcomes dialogue, and listening carefully, Jake learns a lot about what’s going on with Cynthia.
She’s single and an only child. Her mother is becoming very forgetful and demanding. Her father has been a problem drinker all of his life and can’t be counted on for much of anything. More and more, she needs to take care of her parents – buying and cooking food, taking them to doctor’s appointments, doing their laundry and cleaning their house. She is very worried about her parents’ future, knowing that she’ll be facing some very hard decisions soon.
She had the flu around Thanksgiving and just hasn’t felt very well since then. She’s been more and more worried. She’s felt blue since Christmas, when her father embarrassed her in front of her friends and her formerly chatty mother just sat there, not talking to anyone.
Her closest friend just got engaged and will be moving away in two months. Her life is in turmoil. All she wants to do is eat & sleep.
On hearing all this, Jake has a better idea of how stressed Cynthia is. He recognizes that she is under-resourced and needs help in working through what’s going on.
Jake knows there’s an agency that provides services to the elderly. Because Cynthia seems so overwhelmed, giving her a specific name and number to call will be far more useful than just recommending Cynthia find one for herself.
He assures her that her job is not in jeopardy since her track record has been so good, as long as things turn around in the next three months. Specifying a time for reevaluating her job status makes clear to both of them that she needs to be making progress in resolving her problems, improving productivity and needs to follow through on the suggestions he’s made. Making expectations clear and holding Cynthia accountable is an important part of coaching.
Probably, most important of all, he needs to monitor on a regular basis how Cynthia is doing. Since she is feeling so overwhelmed, he should take the initiative in meeting with her on a weekly basis, at least until things settle down. Before their meeting ends, they agree on what their follow up meeting schedule will be so Jake can find out how things are going.
When they next meet, Cynthia reports she has met a social worker at the agency that Jake recommended. The social worker will evaluate her parents’ situation, particularly whether they are safe continuing to live independently. Cynthia says she feels less worried because she has an expert helping her figure things out. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Cynthia says she’s seen her doctor who ruled out an infection or something worse. He’s given her a prescription that should help her feel more energized.
She tells Jake what she has accomplished in the past week. They also discuss her work plan for the next two weeks – what clients she’ll be calling on, following up with and what new clients she’ll try to recruit.
While Jake recognizes they will need to continue to talk frequently, he has much greater confidence that Cynthia will be able to turn things around.
Coaching worked!
Next Issue: Teaching bosses to be coaches.
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