Continuous Performance Management Training for Your Employees

Conversations to Accelerate
Your  Performance and Potential

This program prepares your employees to engage in your
continuous performance management process. 
ConvInMoment

 

Our Learn, Try and Apply method quickly develops the fundamental skills of employees to ask for feedback and play an active role in driving their performance and potential.  

Workshop content is delivered in short modules of 45 – 90 minutes, depending on the program. Sessions are experiential. A concept is shared, tried during the session, and ends with instructions on applying the skills and tools back on the job. The learning sticks because it aligns directly with your organization’s performance management process.  

Equip your employees with the skills and tools to drive their performance and development.  

We assume that our managers will follow the advice to “provide feedback early and often. In reality, most conversations focus on day-to-day operations (work results, status updates, resolving issues, projects, etc.). These discussions are critical, but we rarely get direct feedback about what we're doing well and should continue and what we can do to improve and develop. The good news is that you don't need to wait passively for feedback. The key is asking the right questions. Use the skills and tools in this workshop for in-the-moment conversations or use the quick yet more structured 10-Minute Questions Conversation.

We tell employees, "you are responsible for your career and development".   

The next step is setting them up for success with the skills, tools, and a simple process. 

The key to self-directing performance and potential is asking the right questions to uncover helpful information.  Even when we tell our managers to give feedback early and often, employees shouldn't wait passively for information, hoping that people will be forthcoming.

 

We've been running this program for more than ten years (see participant feedback). 

This program prepares your employees to self-manage their performance to support short and long-term performance goals, development, and career aspirations.

Participants learn how to engage in conversations and ask questions that will result in new insights to:

  • Identify what is working now, the actions and contributions that are appreciated and can be leveraged/repeated.
  • Learn how to be even more effective moving forward (course correction, a shift in behavior, different or altered actions, what to start doing more of or less of).
Asking for input enables employees to proactively uncover helpful information versus waiting passively and hoping someone provides feedback.  It's all about asking the right questions.  
 

Learning Outcomes

  • EXPAND YOUR PERSPECTIVE

    Discover how everyday work interactions can offer the best opportunities for on-the-spot insights by learning how to ask thoughtful questions of managers, colleagues, and anyone you support and interact with at work.  

  • FEEDBACK VERSUS INSIGHT

    Learn the difference between feedback about past actions and insight (expanding your perspective by asking questions about what's working now and ideas for future contributions and improvements). Choose the approach that works best for you based on the situation and your preference. 

  • PREPARE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE 10-MINUTE QUESTIONS CONVERSATION WITH YOUR MANAGER

    Strengthen your communications with your manager with ongoing two-way conversations about your performance priorities, skill development, work interests, and your progress.  Learn a framework for brief one-to-one discussions with your manager to recognize accomplishments. strengths and near-term areas of focus.   Ongoing conversations about what's working now and how to be even more effective moving forward (versus annual reviews that look backward).

  • STEER YOUR CONVERSATIONS BY SETTING THE AGENDA

    Learn how to pre-select questions to ask your manager to gain clear answers and insight about your: accomplishments, positive impact, short and long-term professional development interests, and your most immediate work priorities and action items. 

  • TOOLS AND STRATEGIES TO ADVANCE YOUR PERFORMANCE, POTENTIAL, AND CAREER ASPIRATIONS

    Use Two Visual Models to understand your current and planned performance, professional interests, and career direction.  Learn how to advocate for on-the-job opportunities to gain new skills and experiences to pursue short and longer-term development interests. 

Learning Impact and Putting the Skills and Tools to Work  

This is not your typical training program where you hope participants will use the workshop's skills and tools. Participants implement the newly learned skills and tools through the 10-Minute Questions Conversation (10MQ). The 10MQ reshapes communications between managers and employees based on two-way flexible, informal, yet structured conversations.

Sourcing Better Information Leads to Control Over Your Career Acceleration

You'll learn how to think about your performance more holistically and see the connection between work results, day-to-day actions, and your career aspirations.

By asking the right questions of the right people you'll know where you stand.  You'll know what strengths to leverage and where to tweak your performance. 

Participant Feedback
  • Throughout my career, I’ve wanted more feedback, but I got nothing specific and useful. Just general comments. Not helpful. It wasn’t until my organization offered the Conversations to Accelerate Your Performance program I learned EXACTLY how to frame questions so it leads to specific answers. I’ll use this my entire career! I’ve shared the strategy with my wife. It’s super easy and intuitive!
  • The 10 Minute Question Conversation format sets the stage for listening to the employee's feedback instead of the manager doing all the talking.
  • The 10-Minute Conversation is about what could and should happen with my future performance, not reviewing and judging the past. So refreshing. I look forward to this conversation with my manager!
  • This was the first time I got to pick the topics and questions I wanted to raise with my manager. It’s usually an HR form with canned topics and the manager does all the talking. Really, the best convo I’ve ever had with a manager about me, my development, and what I need from him to do my job.
  • The 10MQ enabled me to give my manager feedback, but not in a weird awkward way. There was one thing on my mind, more about a workstyle that I felt was alienating, and I raised it, and it wasn't what I thought it was at all! I've moved on thanks for this conversation format opening the opportunity to bring up a topic I'd never have done on my own.
  • I will use worksheets. They are a great resource to select my questions and organize my notes before and during the meeting.
  • This is a great tool to help us tackle specific concerns and questions between employee and supervisor to help us progress & move forward. I like that it is simple & direct with more focus on certain topics.
  • I like that I get to choose the topics and questions instead of an HR created form that I HAVE TO fill in, but doesn't benefit me.
  • I'll use the conversation starter questions that provide a specific jumping-off point to dive below the surface of "everything’s good."
  • HR has picked great questions for the tool (was on paper, now online with more questions to choose from). And I like the other 300 questions that are categorized by topic. Will never run out of things to talk about with my boss!
  • No matter what questions you pick for your conversation they all lead to meaningful info. Things I can act on and a big plus is discovering specifically what I’m doing well. The 10 Minute Conversation isn’t what I thought it would be. No judgment or evaluation of my past performance. Loved it!
  • The conversations with my direct reports go way beyond tasks. We’re having conversations that align how we work together.
  • This process is a million times better than annual reviews. I know where I stand and what I should do moving ahead.
  • My manager and I incorporated the career pattern model into our first conversation and not only do I have a better understanding of where I've been and what I want to develop, now my manager knows too. We have a plan that involves more time in the lab...a small, but essential next step in my profession.
  • I started right when Covid hit and never got to go to the office. I've been remote this whole time, so missed the orientation for new hires and getting to know my peers and boss. The 10MinuteConversation has been a great way to connect with my boss and come up to speed. We're doing it weekly.
  • This is the first time I’ve viewed performance as Results and Behavior, together. Breaking down “performance” into these two components will help me check my actions, not just deliverables.
  • Excellent program because I’m walking away with some new tools to get constructive and corrective feedback on my own terms.
  • I look at the questions in the 10MQ as the framework for the conversations with my manager. No matter which questions you both choose, useful information flows back and forth. Plus it’s quick.
  • I feel a lot more connected with my manager with the 10-Minute check-ins. It was awkward at first because I’ve been used to being on the receiving end of performance reviews, not really a full participant in the conversation. After the first couple of conversations, I can say this is 1,000 times better than reviews!
  • It takes only 10 minutes to have a meaningful performance dialogue.
  • I like the idea of the dedicated check-in to focus specifically on performance without including other tasks.
  • How to have an open, efficient, reoccurring dialogue with my manager.
  • My manager would usually “move” or cancel our 1:1 conversations. I get it because she’s super busy, and the 1:1’s were about an hour. But the 10MQ is so short and productive that we have a meeting every month.
  • I have a better sense of how to ask the right question about my performance. I now know what effective questions look like…and have lots of examples to choose from.
  • Learned how to frame conversations to get ongoing feedback to best help work/goals/projects before they end.
  • Even though I’ve asked my manager for feedback I never seemed to hear anything useful. Now I understand why. I was asking the wrong .questions. I will use the approach on how to properly form questions that will result in specific feedback.
  • I’ve learned that it’s pointless to wait for my manager to give me feedback. I now understand how to think about the feedback I want and formulate the right questions.
  • I think I was over complicating an issue with my boss, and this conversation, the part where I got to easily give feedback to my boss about future support, made a change in his behavior that was important to me (and that in reality he had no idea I was bothered by the issue).
  • Instead of assuming everything I’m doing is “fine” and banking on the fact that if I’m not meeting expectations my manager will speak up, this system is so much more reassuring. After the first conversation with my boss I was made aware of a strength I never even saw in myself. I’m feeling more confident even though I’m new to the research analyst job.
  • Learned that the way you ask for feedback guides the way you are answered.
  • I learned how to ask the right questions to get the insights I need. I don’t have to wait until my performance review, not to focus on the negative/focus on the future – what I can do to improve now.
  • I now know how to ask for feedback that’s not about the past, but focuses on the present and near term.
  • The 10 Minute Question conversation paved the way for a more in-depth discussion with one of my employees.  We'd never have touched on the topic if not for this process.  Thanks, Terri for implementing this.  
  • This new conversation approach isn’t like the conventional manager/employee one-to-one meeting. It's more than a discussion about tasks and to-do lists.
  • I've never thought of myself as a great manager, but just doing these conversations where I'm doing more listening than talking I already feel like I'm a better manager.  

  • Finding an active role for the employee to play during performance discussions has made all the difference. I no longer feel like it's all on me to initiate feedback and direction. The 10-Minute convo makes the process collaborative and a shared partnership.