ProActive Leadership Consulting - Training - Coaching

A reproducible, "How to" article from the pen of Dr. Millard MacAdam

ProActive vs. Reactive SuperVision:

A Strategy for Enhancing Staff Performance and Productivity ^©

Adapted from his article published in Achievement Magazine

People take on a position wanting to do their best. However, they often lack some of the knowledge, skills and necessary to carry out the functions and tasks required of their position at an optimum level of performance. Because this is the way it is, leaders need to be proactive and invest some of their time in learning the ProActive Instructional SuperVision process and skills.  These skill sets are observation, conferencing and coaching. These skills will empower you to help your staff members gain the "how to" for performing the functions and tasks of their position excellently.

How well do you develop the performance and productivity of the staff members under your leadership?  How do they acquire the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to deliver outstanding performance?  Research tells us that one of the most powerful ways to improve a staff member's performance is through observation, feedback, training and coaching.  By following some of the basic and tested guidelines from the research on training and coaching, you can become a very effective facilitator of learning ... one of the responsibilities and basic functions of a truly proactive leader.

Reflect back to the last time that you tried to instruct a staff member in how to better perform a particular function or task. On a scale of 1 (low) to 10 (high), how effectively did you carry out these twelve steps for conducting solid staff member training and coaching?

 To what degree did you...

1. Pre test the person to see how much he or she already knew about applying the task skills?

2. Identify and label the specific knowledge, skills or attitudes to be learned to successfully carry out the function or task?

3. Outline the specific, functional steps required for successful completion of the task?

4. Explain the importance, relevance and reasons for learning the task?

5. Effectively communicate the specific things you wanted the person to learn?

6. Effectively outline for the person, the steps in the task before you began showing the person what to do and how to do it?

7. Model or demonstrate the correct performance of the task so that the person could observe it in action.

8. Observe the person doing the critical parts of the task during the instructional session?

9. Effectively analyze and critique the persons performance during your instruction and coaching session?

10. Encourage the person to ask clarifying questions during instruction and coaching?

11. Establish a time line for the person to acquire the knowledge, skills or attitudes desired?

12. Establish a schedule for follow-up observations, affirmative and corrective feedback, and reinforcement in the work setting?

If your total is 100 or over you are most likely doing what it takes to help your staff members improve their performance and increase their productivity.  A score between 80 and 100 indicates you are probably doing average. If your score is below 60 you are probably not getting the performance results from your staff members that you, they and your organization deserve.  Any single item score below 7 is worthy of attention.  One way to check the accuracy of your perception, is to have several staff members complete the check list anonymously from their perspective and return it to you for analysis.

Your staff members can become very frustrated, and often defensive, when you as a leader try to teach them to do something while using inappropriate and ineffective observation, conferencing, instructional, and coaching skills. When this happens, you probably get frustrated because the staff member does not understand how to carry out the task effectively. The staff member becomes frustrated because he or she is trying to learn to do the task but is not achieving it adequately.

At times, you like other leaders, might assume that people are not listening when you do your best to show them what you want done. On the other hand, your staff members may be thinking that you as their leader know what you are doing, but that you don’t know how to demonstrate or teach someone else to do it. 

Solid training and staff development methods can do a lot to enhance productivity and reduce frustration and tension in your organization. First you must commit yourself to eliminating the four most common errors leaders exhibit when training and coaching others: 

1. Failure to establish and clearly communicate the learning objectives.

2. Failure to outline the entire set of learning tasks.

3. Failure to follow-up with affirmative and corrective feedback and reinforcement.

4. Failure to establish deadlines for mastering the task.

When you do decide to teach a person something new ... a skill, a procedure, the implementation of a new policy, or just a new way of doing things, I recommend that you try following these nine, performance-producing steps. 

1.       Label the Learning Target such as skill, task, procedure, applied knowledge, or attitude segment that you are going to teach the person so that you can both refer to it easily.

2.       Pretest the Person's Knowledge and Skills to see what they already know and “can do”.  Don't assume they know or don't know something or can’t or can do something.  Find out. Also check out the “will do” in terms of their motivation to apply the knowledge, skills or attitudes desired.

3.      Outline the Targeted Task (assuming it is a task you want them to learn) by briefly describing the whole picture of what's going to happen during the instructional process.

4.       Explain the Incremental Knowledge and Skills needed to effectively perform the task. Separate the process of learning the task into a logical sequence of sub tasks.

5.       Ask and Encourage Questions throughout the instructional sequence. Check frequently for understanding by having the person explain and demonstrate each aspect of the task.

6.       Demonstrate and Model the Skills while your staff member observes. Encourage questioning during the process for clarification and repeated demonstrations where necessary.

7.       Observe and Record Performance Actions while the staff member performs the task. Gather behavior specific data for use during the conference and feedback step.

8.       Give Affirmative and Corrective Feedback as the staff member replicates the task. Let them know what was done correctly and what needs to be changed to improve the performance of the task.  Avoid jumping in prematurely.  Allow the person the opportunity for self correction, but don't let them struggle and stumble around in error to the point of excessive frustration.

9.       Conduct Follow-up Observations and Coaching in the work setting. This is critical to ensure mastery.  Set a specific time when you will observe, give feedback and coach the person on how the task is being carried out in the work setting.  No surprises here.  Let them know when you are coming to observe, and that your purpose is to help them gain stellar performance.  Your goal is to help the person achieve excellence, not to catch them doing something wrong!

The steps discussed above are outlined as planning steps below for you to develop a planning sheet that fits your style and needs.  They may seem time consuming and involved. It does take time to help someone develop the skills to perform something better.  However, if you are interested in developing your people to higher levels of excellent performance, you will find taking these steps to be an investment in reducing mistakes and wasted time and money. That means happier, more successful and motivated people who will help you increase the productivity and profits of your organization. After all is said and done, isn't that what leadership is all about... influencing and inspiring people to effectively and efficiently achieve the organization's vital vision, values, mission and goals?

Plan each instructional session with any one of your staff members by setting up a planning sheet that has space for doing these ten planning steps.

1. What task, skill, procedure, or attitude are you going to teach this person ?

2. How will you pretest the staff member?

3. List the specific steps involved in the skill that you will teach.

4. What major obstacles do you anticipate?

5. How do you plan to overcome these obstacles? 

6. How many instructional sessions will it take? 

7. How much time do you plan to spend in each session?

8. List the dates and times of each session. 

9. How will you follow-up through observation, feedback and coaching? 

10. List the dates and times you plan to follow-up.