Florence Stone - Coaching, Counseling and Mentoring: How to Choose and Use the Right Technique to Boost Employee Performance

Coaching,
Counseling &
Mentoring

Second Edition

Coaching,
Counseling &
Mentoring

How to Choose & Use the Right Technique to Boost Employee Performance

Second Edition

Florence M. Stone

American Management Association

New York Atlanta Brussels Chicago Mexico City San Francisco Shanghai Tokyo Toronto Washington, D.C.

Special discounts on bulk quantities of AMACOM books are available to corporations, professional associations, and other organizations. For details, contact Special Sales Department, AMACOM, a division of American Management Association, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.
Tel: 212-903-8316. Fax: 212-903-8083.
E-mail: specialsls@amanet.org
Website: www.amacombooks.org/go/specialsales
To view all AMACOM titles go to: www.amacombooks.org

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service. Iflegal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stone, Florence M.

Coaching, counseling & mentoring : how to choose & use the right technique to boost employee performance / Florence M. Stone.2nd ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8144-2035-5 (pbk)

ISBN-13: 978-0-8144-3010-1 (ebook)

1. Mentoring in business. 2. EmployeesCoaching of. 3. EmployeesCounseling of. 4. EmployeesTraining of. I. Title. II. Title: Coaching, counseling and mentoring.

2007 Florence M. Stone.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.

This publication may not be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in whole or in part,
in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of AMACOM,
a division of American Management Association,
1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

Printing number

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Introduction: Three Ways to Develop
High-Performance Employees

I f Your Organization is to Sustain its competitive advantage, it needs employees who are motivated and eager to learn and adapt as their roles change along with the organization. Todays companies need people who, at the least, meet their goals and, when given the opportunity, exceed those goals, demonstrating initiative and creativity. If you have strong people skills, you can build a high-performing team that can be relied on to make major contributions to your organizations strategic plan.

What is your role in this? It is to have competency in three key people skills: coaching, counseling, and mentoring. Because it means better bottom-line results, organizations look for managers with these abilities. On a personal level, being a good coach, counselor, and mentor could be your ticket to advancement.

With escalating time pressures and constant change, upper management has their eye out for managers who can recruit capable employees, develop the skills they need to do todays jobs, and prepare them to handle tomorrows jobs; who recognize their obligation to confront poor performers and who will work with these people to find a solution or make the tough decisions to terminate those who are dragging down the rest of the team; and who can keep their superstars shining even when there is little opportunity for advancement or dollars for increased performance.

In short, organizations want and reward managers who are skilled at the managerial tasks of coaching, counseling, and mentoring. Note that they are referred to here as managerial responsibilities with good reason: coaching, counseling, and mentoring are very much a part of a managers joband have always been so. The demands on organizations, however, have made them critical skills today. This is why this book has been developed. It not only describes each responsibility but also tells when to use which critical skill and how to most effectively use itsomething many managers arent always sure about doing.

Confusion about these three management skills abounds. A review of the management literature would suggest that the confusion is only semantic, with coaching confused with counseling or mentoring, and mentoring confused with coaching or counseling. But the confusion goes deeper. All managers pay lip service to these terms, many managers think they are good at these skills, but very few managers are actually doing them. Managers and team leaders may have a general idea about how to coach, how to counsel, and/or how to mentor people, but for the most part they are unaware of the various roles involved in each task and the best way of proceeding. Nor do they know all the problems they may encounter if they dont do these things right.

In this book you will find answers to all the questions you might have about coaching, counseling, and mentoring, including the descriptions of the traps you could fall into and, more important, how to avoid these traps.

To help you get the terminology straight, in this book the term coaching refers to the task of continually developing employees so that they do their jobs well. Comparable to the work of a professional coach, managerial coaching involves not only assessment of development needs and subsequent training but also making good hires to begin with. Good coaches recruit only the best athletes, and they train newcomers to close whatever skill gaps remain as well as help more experienced workers update their skills and increase their employability. Managers should also communicate the organizations values and mission to ensure that the staff is empowered and even shares the leadership responsibilities.

There are mistakes you can make along the waymistakes that can turn a capable newcomer into a troublesome employee or an employee with a personal problem into a problem employee. Either situation demands counseling, defined here as a four-step process, of which one-on-one communication is most important since the success of these meetings could mean the difference between an employees continued employment or not.

The hard work of the team can be undone by just one employee who doesnt carry his or her weight. Consequently, poor performance cant be tolerated. Employees who are working ineffectively need to know it, and they need your help to make the necessary improvements. In todays tough antidiscrimination legal climate, managers need to demonstrate how they have expended every reasonable effort to help employees perform well. A manager should have documentation to show that a suspended or discharged employee was warned and that help was available. This book will show you how to conduct effective counseling sessions, keep written records of these sessions, and develop an action planthe necessary evidence you will need should an aggrieved employee take legal action against your organization. Some managers think they can avoid counseling traps just by ignoring performance problems, but that can be the biggest career mistake of all, should litigation result from this failure to act.