Leaders, Managers, Team Leads as Performance Coaches (Part 1), By Segun Mojeed

First of all, I want to sincerely apologise for the unannounced and unintended absence of this column in the last three weeks or so. It was just due to fatigue, and a few distractions here and there. And as our daughter, Jesutofunmi, would often announce whenever she goes hibernating into her closet and then reappears fresh, I’m back!

I got some enquiry smses and WhatsApp messages from many fans of this column. Thanks for checking on me. Precious appreciation to my own egbon (brother), Shola Oshunkeye, who keeps encouraging and nudging me on. His last WhatsApp message talks about the lacuna getting too long. That word, lacuna immediately conjured the images of impasse and status quo ante in my subconscious. They all sound like crisis words to me. I don’t like crisis situations. Consequently, I’m, this week, starting a 3-part reading on Performance Coaching. This is a natural follow-up to the 2-part ‘Investing in People through Coaching and Mentoring’ concluded before the hibernating break.

Acknowledgement: Most of the materials for this three-part essay are derived from BezaleelConsulting’s double-edged learning and performance bouquet of Performance Coaching Essentials and Coaching:::Mentoring with Impact respectively which are themselves products of experience and some quality resources. These are two hybrid workshops for leadership teams and middle-level management which we have successfully executed for blue chips over the years. Furthermore, since our faculty, after a joint needs assessment, was able to develop an abridged one-day version for one of our clients, a foremost indigenous conglomerate in 2014, we have been able to run this programme for individual and corporate clients with relative ease and impactful results. It has now been embedded into our ‘Future Leaders Series’ curricula for new managers and graduate trainees.

I would attempt a definition of key concepts in the title of this essay mostly from a practical perspective. Before that, however, there is always a “getting started” motivation slide to capture the essence, the ‘why’’ of these sessions. The original quote is not ours, we only got creative and tagged ours version 2.0. I’m talking about that famous Jack Welch’s quote on leadership and growing people, which says “before you become a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” For the purpose of our coach-mentoring sessions, we took that quote to a new level and recreated it thus – “before you become a coach-mentor, success is all about grooming yourself. When you become a coach-mentor, success is all about grooming others.” Performance.

But why performance? We would have to start this journey from the point of what is performance. What constitutes performance? How do I know I am performing or not? Who is a performance coach?

Performance is effectiveness. It is not just doing. It is beyond efforts. It is not A.T.A.N.A – all talk and no action. It is the life blood of any living organism or a growing entity. Performance is results, period! A performance coach, therefore, is she who grooms or coaches or mentors (or disciples) someone else for performance – to be effective, to excel and to get results. So, performance connotes achieving results, agreed results, and maybe, exceeding such results. These are results achieved with our values well respected and with our human dignity intact.

The English Dictionary simply defines performance as the action or process of performing a task. That is not good enough for the performance we are talking about. The task has to be accomplished excellently well. Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, has this to say: performance is the completion of a task with application of knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA). This KSA dimension is a discussion for another day. My Yale SOM jottings have it that performance is the successful execution (and probably exceeding expectations) of an assigned task measured against predetermined, pre-set and known standards of accuracy, completeness, cost, time and speed. This article is all about that kind of performance, and being a Performance Coach – the one who guides another to such level of expertise.

Performance coaching is the art and act of motivating and inspiring team members to achieve, attain and exceed expectations. Successful organisations, families and nations are endowed with team leads, managers and leaders who motivate and inspire their people in this direction. Such people are not just good leaders, managers or whatever title, we call them Performance Coaches, PC for short (mind yourself, not Police Constable). Performance coaching is not an installation; it is a process – a people and organisation development process. It is also a mind-set – a hybrid of the growth and the outward mind-sets. Mind-sets’ Acculturation is a subject for another chapter.

What constitutes performance? To answer this question in its fullness requires that we look into other factors and answer some other questions. For instance, I’m convinced that no manager or team lead has the moral and/or professional right to ask for performance of any kind when the goals have not been clearly set and agreed. That is: what objectives are we targeting? What purpose are we pursuing? What is the goal to be achieved? What are the key performance indicators? How do we know we have succeeded in our objectives? Are we all on the same page? Are the goals clear? Do we have the wherewithal for the mission? Who are with us? Who is doing what? Who and where are the sponsors? Lots of questions, oftentimes you may have to deploy the ‘5 Whys’ strategy to get to the root of it. The first step to success in this all important role of a Performance Coach is to set performance goals with the individual team members.

Goals, objectives and targets are what performance is measured by. Goals must be clearly set and documented. Generation after generation, several acronyms have been used to set out the characteristics of validly set performance goals. These characteristics have become the yardstick for judging the authenticity, seriousness, effectiveness or otherwise of such goals. These acronyms include: S.M.A.R.T; S.M.A.R.T.E.R; B.E.S.T; B.H.A.Gs; P.U.R.E; and C.L.E.A.R. Passing through an MBA programme, you can’t miss being taught that for a goal to be goal indeed and in deed. And to accomplish the purpose for which it is set, it must be specific, measurable, achievable, reasonable, and timeous. S.M.A.R.T has since been improved upon. Smart teachers have raised the bar, so to say, by adding E.R to make it S.M.A.R.T.E.R goal.

If you have been reading me, I alluded to this a few articles back. However, just to refresh us, here we have it again: E stands for Extending capabilities, another expression for stretch target. In other words, a performance coach, at all times, sets goals which pump up the adrenalin and bring out the best in her team members. R stands for Rewarding. Goals must be mutually rewarding especially when accomplished or surpassed. Team members and their manager must feel good about themselves in the process of goal setting and accomplishment. The lead should be invited to make input in the goal-setting process. It should be a dialogue and decision by consensus, and not necessarily by majority to avoid the winner-loser backlash. Performance coaching is a win-win approach to people and business growth.

Those who feel good about themselves produce great results, so says Ken Blanchard. Goals must not be set to humiliate but to challenge the individual. Your goals must fulfil the acronym B.E.S.T for believable, energising, specific and time-bound. I first came across B.H.A.Gs some years back courtesy of Jim Collins and Jerry Porras bestseller ‘Built to Last’. BHAGs stands for big, hairy, audacious goals. Setting big, hairy, audacious goals, according to Jim Collins, et al, is a great way to stimulate progress. It requires certain level of unreasonable confidence and commitment. It is an aspect of the future envisaged, and you don’t want to belittle that future. BHAGs assist long-term vision, it is not a question of right or wrong – the question is does your goal get your adrenalin flowing? Do you find it stimulating? Does it spur a forward movement in the right direction?

 ‘…A goal not written is a mere wish’

In addition to all these, your goals must be P.U.R.E and C.L.E.A.R; meaning they are positively stated, understood, relevant, and ethical. Those goals must be challenging, legal, environmentally sound, appropriate and recorded. Yes, recorded in any form familiar to your organisation and your generation. My generation will vote for written goals any day. It is even a very popular saying among us that a goal not written is a mere wish. A performance coach keeps no one in doubt as to his mission. The goals are crystal clear. This singular act goes a long way in explaining what constitutes performance. In the next part, I would endeavour to write a bit on the team-leading role and why leaders should be performance coaches.

In wrapping up this edition, therefore, it is pertinent to say that performance coaches have responsibility for effective training, career coaching, confronting, and mentoring. They take time and effort to build synergistic relationship with their team members and learn the tactics to successfully put these four roles in perspective and perform them effectively. We would be looking closely at these roles in subsequent editions in this series. Suffice now to just note that the central objective of performance coaching is to build a motivated, productive team, ready to accept challenges and take initiatives. Good managers are saddled with this responsibility because they are most strategically placed to connect training to the job. For instance, for every training we do in BezaleelConsulting, the immediate supervisors of participants must execute a Learning Contract days before the training with such an undertaking to follow up on her direct report when he or she returns from the training in the area of learning transfer and changed behaviour.

To be continued…Till then, enjoy.

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. Years ago, I read a Soundview Executive Book Summary on Performance Coaching courtesy of my friends and colleagues, Dr Toyin Bankole and Dr Kayode Oluwagbuyi. It inspired me. I’m still ransacking our library for my copy of that summary. When I find it I shall duly acknowledge the authors.
3. Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras, 1994.
4. Coaching for Breakthrough Success: Proven Techniques for Making Impossible Dreams Possible by Jack Canfield and Dr Peter Chee, 2013