Performance Feedback Coaching Training Clinic

The traditional method by which managers are taught to provide performance feedback to employees, sometimes referred to as "constructive criticism," is often the very reason they avoid, water down or delay giving feedback in the first place. Most managers are adept at the objective parts of performance discussions (such as job responsibilities, skills and goals), but nearly all of them dread initiating conversations about disruptive and unproductive behaviors.

Here's why: "Constructive Criticism" typically sounds like "here's the problem, here are the examples of your shortcomings and this is the negative impact." For the manager, the conversation is ‘constructive.' To the employee, this sounds like ‘criticism.' Inherent limitations with this kind of communication frequently manifest as follows:

• From the employee's perspective, performance discussions often seem like finger pointing and fault finding. And they feel disciplinary.
• Managers universally dread employee reactions to such exchanges.
• Performance issues are therefore commonly ignored or handled poorly, so the resulting issues usually become problems for HR to deal with.

By learning how to coach your managers on how to create talking points that are honest, clear, hearable and sayable you can help them gain the confidence and skills they need to initiate these difficult yet necessary discussions.

Learn a New Approach

The Performance Continuum Feedback Method® (PCFM) bypasses the need to raise negative performance examples, thus representing a healthy departure from the established feedback approach known as "constructive" criticism. Utilizing the PCFM, performance messages come across as non-threatening so the feedback recipient is much more likely to remain open, rather than engaging in a confrontational exchange with the person delivering the message. Alleviating those defensive reactions enables managers and employees to come to terms more quickly around developmental solutions and goals.

What Participants Can Expect During This Action Learning Session 

• New coaching strategies to positively influence the way your managers talk with employees about their performance issues.
• Demonstrations of the importance of initiating early intervention conversations before one-time issues turn into persistent patterns of under-performance.
• Questioning techniques that will help your managers become clear on the "one thing" the employee must do to accelerate their performance.
• Procedures for helping managers translate this information into conversations that are likely to result in the employee acknowledging his/her need for development.
• The right vocabulary for describing disruptive behavioral aspects of performance, such as interpersonal skills, temperament, approach, motivation etc.
• A method for addressing performance matters in a non-critical tone, which will help to avoid the number one mistake most managers make when introducing feedback.

Tools participants will take away

• The PCFM® process and coaching worksheets, with rights to reproduce the coaching tool for use back on the job (for one-to-one coaching sessions).
• A timesaving performance coaching system that can be used right away.
• Techniques to tactfully prompt managers to follow through on the conversations for which they have been coached.
• The ability to coach your managers to deliver feedback that has a greater chance for a "you're right, I do need to work on this" employee response instead of a defensive reaction.
• Active listening skills that bypass the tendency to tell or give advice, and instead ask questions that will help the manager see the issue and solution clearly for themselves.

Who should attend?

Human Resources Professionals and functional line leaders, who are responsible for helping their managers engage in productive performance conversations with their employees.