The 4 C's of COACHING Skills

By Nancy Friedman

When most people think of the word "COACH," they immediately imagine someone on the sidelines screaming at their players to do a better job. That may be true in certain sports situations, but in business, a coach needs to have a completely different approach in order to help employees improve performance.

Let's have a look at the role of a manager/coach and how that integrates with employee development. Where does traditional training come in? How does training relate to coaching? And what are the differences between training, coaching, and counseling?

The process starts with training. That's the first step.

Let's say you're training a group. What usually happens is most of the group understands, learns, and benefits from the information you've taught. Unfortunately, not everyone "gets it." What do we do about that small percentage of employees – often good, conscientious people – who may need personalized attention after training? Those are the ones who need coaching.

Remember that Coaching is strategically guiding someone into improving performance. It's analyzing feedback to see the areas where the training hasn't taken hold.

Is remedial training needed? That's where the coaching comes in. These are the people who need one-on-one customized help to develop their skills. OK, we've talked about training and coaching. Where does counseling come in?

Counseling is helping someone explore, and possibly resolve, personal problems. Counseling is utilized if, for whatever reason, the employee isn't performing. It's for that special situation when training and coaching haven't worked, where the employee is not willing, or is unable, to do the job. Especially if there is some distraction that is not job related.

We're going to give you the Telephone Doctor® Four Step Model for effective coaching in a call center or business environment. We call it the 4 C's of Coaching.

The 4 C's are:

• Concurrence
  
• Content
  
• Commitment
  
• Congratulations or Continuation
  

Let's cover them one by one.

Concurrence is critical. Unless you and the trainee agree (concur) that there is a gap, and he commits to the improvement that's needed, you won't be able to coach to your full capacity for effectiveness. We need concurrence. Both you and the employee need to concur there is an issue. Once that's done, we can go on to the Content.

The Content: What's important is to identify the content that needs to be improved. What needs to be done? What are some of the issues involved? Normally where coaching is needed, it's either due to the fact that the employee doesn't know how to do the job (she just doesn't “get it”) or doesn't want to do the job. You need to find out which it is. The coach and the employee need to agree on the content, the issue, and the problem. Only then can she make a commitment to solve it.

Commitment: The coach and the trainee need to agree. He can then make a commitment to solve the problem. Normally we're working with an intelligent, conscientious employee who wants to do a good job. With some coaching, the job will be done right.

Congratulations or Continuation: Once you and the employee have found the content that needs to be corrected, and you give him the instruction on how to do it right, and there is commitment it will be done, it's time for CONGRATULATIONS. Let him know he’s done a good job. This is critical. It's most important you don't leave that part out. Worse case scenario, it’s continuation. A little more work may be needed with some employees to reach the congratulations step.

Much coaching takes place to fill a perceived need. You find out that there's a gap in the performance of an employee, and then plan a coaching approach that should improve the performance of that employee. It's nice and orderly to be able to think about what you're going to do. Formulate your plan and decide when you're going to do your coaching.

Coaching, while immediate, should also be in private; especially when it becomes an on the spot type of coaching. Never embarrass the employee. That's not coaching, that's being mean!

Nancy Friedman is president of Telephone Doctor®, an international customer service training company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, specializing in customer service and telephone skills. She is a KEYNOTE speaker at association conferences and corporate gatherings and is the author of four best selling books. Call 314-291-1012 for more information or visit the website at www.telephonedoctor.com. Published in Networking Today, October 2004.