Performance Coaching For Dummies®
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Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex, England
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex
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Gladeana McMahon is considered one of the leading personal development and transformational coaches in the UK. She was instrumental in founding the Association for Coaching for which she now holds the positions of Fellow and Vice President. She is also a Fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, The Institute of Management Studies, and The Royal Society of Arts. Gladeana is widely published with some 16 popular and academic books on coaching and counselling. An innovator, Gladeana is one of the UK founders of Cognitive Behavioural Coaching and currently works as the Head of Executive Coaching for Fairplace plc and is Co-director of the Centre for Coaching. She is passionate about her work in coaching business and public sector leaders to master the psychological complexities of 21st-century corporate life. Gladeana was named as one of the UK’s top ten coaches by the Independent on Sunday and Sunday Observer.
Averil Leimon made a name for herself in coaching before anyone knew that was what it was called. As a clinical psychologist, she pioneered the transfer of techniques, knowledge, and academic discipline from the reserve of the damaged to the domain of the eminently normal (well, relatively speaking), becoming a Coaching Psychologist as a result. Averil is co-editor of an ever-increasing coaching series. A founder member of the Association for Coaching (AC), Averil was one of the first people accredited by the AC and now works as an accreditor herself in order to ensure high standards in coaching.
Also hailed as one of the top ten coaches in the UK, Averil and Gladeana make a formidable team of heavy hitters in the coaching world.
Averil’s company, White Water Strategies, combines the best of psychology and business knowledge to coach and develop rounded leaders who get things done successfully, time after time.
From Gladeana: To all the very many coaching clients who have allowed me to help them and have taught me as much about how to be a good performance coach as I have taught them. To Averil who has been a joy to work with on this project. To Mike who helped me achieve my dream of being a writer, and to my partner Will who makes me laugh and provides me with much needed coffee to make sure I meet my deadlines!
From Averil: I can only thank my family for having such faith in my ability to write this book while running a business, a home, and a family, they completely ignored the fact that I was doing it! Just wait – my daughters are writing the next book with me so that will be fun. My husband Julian Bird’s own writings in communication in medicine have been very helpful. My daughters, Natasha and Jessica, have a capacity for both writing and hard work that is inspirational. Working with Gladeana was, as always, great fun. Thanks also to all the many and varied coaching clients over the years. I am grateful to be just as fascinated by the coaching process now as I was right at the start. And finally thanks to Rachael Chilvers at Wiley for keeping us right so charmingly.
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Put simply, Performance Coaching means getting the best out of people at work, and we are passionate about it. If coaching conjures up an image of men in bad shorts with megaphones yelling at would-be sports people, think again. That’s not what we do. This is a practical, helpful, and hopefully fun book for you out there who just need to get a good job done well.
We care passionately about facilitating change, and Performance Coaching For Dummies is the written result of that passion.
We like to roll the sleeves up and start making a difference rather than sitting around defining things. In this book, we encourage you to do the same. Good coaching is highly effective. We really can’t stand wimpy, ineffectual coaching. Let’s make a difference out there!
We won’t pull the wool over your eyes by brandishing jargon at you and creating a mystique around the coaching process. We’re straight talkers. We know that you can get great results with your colleagues and staff and make a difference to your business, whatever it is, with insight into our techniques. We hope you enjoy.
To help you navigate through this book, we set up a few conventions:
Italics are used for emphasis and to highlight new words, or define terms.
Boldfaced text indicates the key concept in a list.
Monofont is used for Web and e-mail addresses.
Sometimes we (the authors, Averil and Gladeana) use the pronoun ‘we’ to signify both of us or ‘I’ followed by ‘(Averil)’ or ‘(Gladeana)’, depending on who the author writing that particular paragraph is.
Also, when speaking generally we use the female pronoun ‘she’ in even-numbered chapters and the male ‘he’ in odd-numbered chapters, just to be fair to both genders!
We assume, and correct us if we’re wrong, that you:
Are quite a sensible, pragmatic person.
Are a manager who wants to get the best out of your team.
Have a good reason for using Performance Coaching but don’t have time to read a wordy tome or a whole panoply of books.
Know that quite a lot of psychology is behind Performance Coaching but don’t really want to get too scientific.
Need some quick hits and the tools to achieve them.
For Dummies books give you answers – fast. You may need to know something specific right now; and other situations that crop up along the way will drive you back to read different sections.
You don’t need to read this book from cover to cover – unless you’d like to (and we secretly hope you do!). Look up the bit you want. Check out the table of contents and the index to find what you need.
The next sections tell you what you can look forward to.
This part is all about painting the big picture. Find out here what Performance Coaching is all about and how to use it. This is where you can begin to work out what you really mean by ‘performance’. Successful Performance Coaching needs an underlying structure and philosophy in order to succeed. This part helps you understand and set up the structure and decide on the goals to shape your coaching.
Part II is all about the characteristics you need to hone to be a Performance Coach and how to begin Performance Coaching at work. Really good, successful coaches share a range of attributes that are core to their coaching. Read this part to find out what qualities you need to develop for successful Performance Coaching. Find out how to build the coaching relationship and establish the ground rules. Consider the impact of body language, motivation, and listening skills. Start to build up a repertoire of more advanced skills that can transform your Performance Coaching.
Here’s where you get to grips with the basics of setting up Performance Coaching to engage people in the most effective way. In this part you consider the stages of Performance Coaching from agreeing a contract, to giving positive feedback and constructive criticism, through to charting progress and managing emotions confidently as you go along. We share some very simple ways of doing things that make all the difference.
In this section, we put Performance Coaching to the test. If you’re gearing up to face some big organisational challenges, this is the part for you. You find out how you can use Performance Coaching as a weapon in the war for talent, as a tool to facilitate change, and as a safety device during organisational turmoil. In this part you contemplate how effective coaching can be in career planning at all stages and in building team effectiveness.
In Part IV we deal with a range of tricky things that can crop up in Performance Coaching. Let’s face it – even if you’ve done all the groundwork, prepared well, and developed the appropriate skills you can still experience obstacles. Personalities clash sometimes. Life in organisations is complicated, with ups and downs, change and uncertainty. In this part you find out how to overcome negativity and deal with strong emotions, difficult relationships, and organisational challenges.
In this part you find a bunch of punchy chapters to contribute to your Performance Coaching excellence and self-development. Even when not Performance Coaching, this section may transform your life!
We also include ten resources to professionalise your Performance Coaching
A number of icons help you find the juiciest bits of the book.
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Jump right into any part of the book that interests you the most. Have fun. Flick through and dip in wherever takes your fancy – you’re bound to find something useful. For example, if you want to know more about giving useful feedback, turn to Chapter 6. If you’re having problems with an angry colleague, we offer advice in Chapter 13. Above all, enjoy this book, and your Performance Coaching journey!
In this part . . .
In these chapters you begin to get the big picture. This is where you really find out what Performance Coaching is, and can sample some theories and applications. You start thinking more clearly about what you want to achieve and how you can go about it. You also see how to set up and structure your Performance Coaching.