Leaders, Managers, Team Leads as Performance Coaches (Part 2) By Segun Mojeed

As at this (Saturday, December 23, 2018) afternoon, I’ve received a few responses to the part 1 of this title. For the ones that missed me, I say, thank you. So sweet of you! I covet your prayers, I don’t want to go missing in action (using your own word) again. Also, a colleague wants to know more, and would want me to do an exposé on the why (and the importance) of being a performance coach. To this, I promise to give it my best shot in this series to answer the ‘why’ question. I love the ‘why’ questions. I have always operated in the mode of a performance coach; my witnesses are all out there though once in a while I find myself veering off. But then, I quickly retrace my steps. Performance coaching is a life style of giving back, bringing up, getting results and adding value, in the corporate world, the civil society in general and in our personal lives. It is not just about certifications in any particular field, it cuts across. As Nike would say, just do it!

For a start, I have a corrigendum to the closing paragraph of the part one of this title. I had written that performance coaches have responsibility for effective training, among other key functions in people and business management. The effective training bit should have read training effectiveness. Training professionals know that very often, effective training ends in the classroom once the ‘happy sheet’ is done and dusted. Training effectiveness, on the other hand, goes beyond classroom effizies and razzmatazz. It is ensuring that training adds value to the business. Performance coaches are the driving force in ensuring this. Last week’s concluding statement should therefore read thus – performance coaches have responsibility for training effectiveness, career coaching, confronting, and mentoring. I can almost hear you loud and clear querying me: ‘Are you then saying they are not responsible for effective training?’

God forbid! I dare not say that. I’m only saying these are two distinct complimentary aspects of the training and development process, like the input and the output, and that in this case, the output is much more cherished and preferred by our sponsors, the business owners. Whereas in time past, not much attention is paid to, or much questions asked about the end results, times have changed and any organisation worth its salt must now ask its leaders – what is the impact of training in behavioural and tangible monetary terms? How is it reflecting on our bottom-line, profitability and/or top-line growth? We would, therefore, need to first spell out the differences to enable us appreciate why performance coaches pay much attention to training effectiveness. Some authors have stigmatised these two concepts as “effective training versus training effectiveness”. I personally do not agree with such characterisation. They are not opposites; rather, they rather complement one another. One needs to happen before the other manifests. After all, Epictetus, the Greek Stoic philosopher, once said: “What is learned without pleasure is forgotten without remorse”.

Effective training has to do with the packaging and execution of a learning event, period. Training effectiveness (I’m always tempted to write the effectiveness with a capital E for emphasis), on the other hand, is the ability to show the impact of the learning event on individual’s post-training behaviour and business outcome – meeting and surpassing expectations set long before the training took place. Often than not, effective training is measured with the appraisal sheets circulated immediately after the training session, either at the end of each module or at the end of the whole programme. Some call it the ‘Happy Sheet’ which we have come to see as grossly inadequate to capture the actual impact of any training. We do not shy away from the hard truth, we tell our participants at every opportunity that our greatest joy is when they go back home, and to work, applying their learning. I do not forget to tell them that the ‘Happy Sheet’ assessment is either skewed towards over-generosity or biased towards animosity, depending on the way you have interacted with facilitators and your co-participants. I should return to more on this in a moment…

Being a performance coach is no title. In fact, the role is defined by what the leader, manager or team lead brings to the table. What value are you adding to your team members? It’s a sacrifice of sort. You can’t give up being a performance coach. It is a role to be coveted. It is not enough to say that you’ve given it your best shot or to simply blame the upcoming generations. By the way, on this generational differences thing, every generation – be it the veterans, baby boomers, Gen X, Gen Y or Gen Z, we all have our pros and cons. The problem with some of us is that we have forgotten so soon how the generations before us put up with some of our cantankerous and infantile behaviours. We were no saints, and I’m not in any way putting up an excuse for the excesses we see around us especially among the Gen Y and Gen Z. I’m constantly on their case, and any one of us ahead of them should, in an understanding manner. Yorubas have a fitting quip for this…“Agba wa bu’ra!” (Transliterated, it means: Can an old man swear that he was never a youth, and never exhibited youthful exuberance?)

As I type the first draft, this beautiful sunny Saturday, we are at home with lots of Gen Zs, mostly in their first year in the university, home and abroad. They are all on Christmas break. For those at home, a break elongated by the ASUU strike. So, at the family altar this morning, we shared the scriptures from Mark 4:35-36: Jesus directed a crossover to the other side of the lake signifying a purposeful movement. Young people, don’t just stand there, do something. Be creative. Use your time well. As they were crossing over, they took Jesus in the boat. Be careful to always be in His company. It is so sweet to be in His presence. Never leave Jesus behind. We need Him every inch of the way. When the storms come, He is ever available. He gives wisdom. We rounded up by talking of the kind of music and lyrics trending nowadays. Do not underrate these youngsters. Based on some trending lyrical controversies that I foresee the Mercedes brand going to court on (please, don’t mind me; is Saul also among the prophets? Am I now a lawyer?), it was easy for them making a choice between two musical events happening tomorrow (Sunday) night.

Performance coaches are dedicatedly involved at every stage of the learning intervention for their team members. This job is not left in the hands of a few ‘specialists’ in Human Resources department. They are involved in training needs identification and/or analysis through to diagnostic consulting by either internal or external consultants. They drive essential communications working hand-in-gloves with their human resource/learning business partners. They pay the price of willingly endorsing the Learning Contract. This is a training effectiveness instrumentality that puts the larger chunk of the responsibility for learning transfer on the manager, yes, on the performance coach. Some of the things she signs up for as a performance coach to give the business high returns on expectations (RoE) for every dollar spent on training may be summarised thus: to attend and participate in any advance briefing sessions for team leads, meet with her team member slated for training before the programme to discuss the most important developmental opportunities the training provides.

She also pledges to release him/her from sufficient work assignment that he/she may have time to attend all the sessions before, during and after, minimise interruptions during the training, meet her/him again after the programme to discuss the highlights of the sessions and mutually explore opportunities for application including cascading nuggets of the training to other members of the team, model the desired behaviours for him/her on returning to the work environment, provide encouragement, support, and reinforcement for efforts to apply his/her learning, provide specific opportunities for him/her to practice the new behaviours and skills, and provide suggestions for continuous development and improvement.

Performance coaches create a post-training conducive work environment that encourages a training participant to apply her learning when back on the job. They don’t shout them down and they don’t shoot their new ideas down. They dialogue, they guide and they mentor. Performance coaches do not come in the ‘James Bond’ lone ranger mode. They are no specialists, and even when their upbringing and grooming tend to make them work-alone geeks, they deliberately develop themselves to veer off into people management mode learning team leading skills to pull up associates rather than beat them down, in deed, words and attitude.

Postscript: Though I’m running out of space today, please allow me to share this familiar occurrence with you. Suddenly, my WhatsApp stopped working with the notice that this version has expired! All the Gen X and Gen Y in the office tried to fix it to no avail. WhatsApp and Window shop just refused to cooperate. On getting home, I handed over the phone to one of the Gen Zs in the house and went to pour some water on my head. He got it fixed before I came out of the shower. I have my WhatsApp back. Ha! Thank you Olamiposi. That’s the young man’s name. Posi for short.

To be continued…Till then, this is wishing you a merry Christmas and a prosperous and peaceful 2019!

Acknowledgement/Sources of Resources for this article:

1. BezaleelConsulting/Olusegun Mojeed: A compendium of over 25 years of manuscripts of my thesis and lecture series in Talent Management and People Matters (unpublished yet), BezaleelConsulting Group Library bezaleelconsultingrw.com
2. Andrew McK. Jefferson, Roy V.H. Pollock, and Calhoun W. Wick: Getting Your Money’s Worth From Training & Development: A Guide to Breakthrough Learning for Managers and Participants, 2009 Pfeiffer, a Wiley Imprint
3. Jim Kirkpatrick & Wendy Kayser Kirkpatrick: Training On Trial: How Workplace Learning Must Reinvent Itself to Remain Relevant, 2010 AMACOM
4. Calhoun Wick, Roy Pollock, Andrew Jefferson & Richard Flanagan: The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning: How to turn Training and Development into Business Results,  2006 Pfeiffer, a Wiley Imprint
5. James D. and Wendy Kayser Kirkpatrick: Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Training Evaluation, 2016 ATD.

EDITOR’S NOTE:

As you may have observed, this article is being published almost five days after the column’s copy day. Certain demons in our mailing process got the script buried and we couldn’t retrieve it fast enough to meet production deadline. We regret this, and we tender our profound apology to our able columnist, Mr. Segun Mojeed, and you, our loyal readers. We can never take you for granted. Thank you.