Terence Traut

Arguably, the most important job of a manager is to manage the performance of employees. Whether they use traditional performance management – goal setting with the employee followed by regular performance monitoring followed by an annual appraisal – or a less traditional method such as self-directed teams, effective performance managers, we suggest, look before they leap. Before they determine the best way to increase performance, they take the time to analyze the employee’s current performance.

Analyzing performance is a subset – albeit a critical one – of the entire set of performance management skills. Like a doctor, your first and most important job in helping your employees is diagnosis – determining WHY an employee may not be performing as expected.

This session invites you to put on your analytic mindset and examine the performance of YOUR employees. We will then invite ideas from your colleagues in CoachingOurselves to determine what you can do to increase employee productivity and morale.

The objectives of this session are to:

• Follow a process for analyzing employee performance.
• Identify the possible reasons for a performance gap in an employee.
• Identify possible approaches for addressing the performance gap.

Providing feedback has long been considered to be an essential skill for managers. Traditionally, this information has been communicated in the form of “downward feedback” from managers to their employees. But there is a fundamental problem with this type of feedback: it focuses on a past, on what has already occurred—not on the infinite variety of opportunities that can happen in the future.  As such, feedback can be limited and static, as opposed to expansive and dynamic.

This session invites you to examine the way in which you provide—and accept—feedback by learning a technique called feedFORWARD.  By increasing the effectiveness of this important exchange, you can increase productivity and positively impact morale.

The objectives for this topic are to:

• Define and demonstrate feedFORWARD.
• Explain why feedFORWARD is more effective than feedback.

High performing teams increase the effectiveness of high performing individuals.  Knowing how to create and sustain high performing teams often determines a manager’s success – and the inevitable success of the initiative or organization.

Teams became all the rage in the 1980s, with a bevy of experts and opinions oozing from corporations, business schools, and theorists.  Over the years, several key truths about teams have emerged after the winds of hyperbole have subsided.

This session invites you to examine your team and compare it to characteristics of exemplary high performing teams. Determine how to make your team a higher performing team.

The objectives for this topic are to:

• Identify the eight elements of exemplary high performing teams.
• Determine how to increase the effectiveness of your team.