Throughout the Coaching Skills for Managers specialization, we’ve discussed many topics for improving coaching conversations with our employees. It is now time to put all of that theory and discussion into practice and examine great examples of common coaching conversations!
Note: This course builds on all previous courses in the Coaching Skills for Managers specialization. It is highly recommended that students complete or be familiar with the topics covered in those courses before taking this course. In particular, you should be familiar with the coaching strategies and tools discussed in previous courses (such as the 5 whys technique, resisting what is, among others), and should have a full understanding of the Thought model and the various components of it: circumstances, thoughts, feelings, actions, and results.
By the end of this course, you will be able to demonstrate appropriate and effective strategies when engaging in coaching conversations with those that you lead. By exploring and analyzing common coaching scenarios that are acted out in this course, you will have a great sense of what works well and not so well during such a conversation. Specifically, you'll be able to better differentiate between a developmental coaching approach and a directive management style, discuss new strategies and techniques for dealing with both mind set and skill set gaps, describe how to use the feedback loop effectively in a conversation, and demonstrate the use of good questioning techniques and the thought model to not only help an employee identify issues, but help the employee really change their thinking.
The final assignment is all about actually having a coaching conversation with another person where you can apply everything you've learned in this course and throughout the Coaching Skills for Managers specialization. Again, it is highly recommended students complete the other courses in the specialization before taking this one. This peer review assignment, in particular, will be difficult to complete without knowledge of the topics covered in these courses.
After going through the course materials and completing the assessments, you will be able to have more effective one-on one-coaching meetings with those you manage and deepen your understanding of the essential practice of coaching conversations.
Overview
Syllabus
- Missing Deadlines and Dealing with Change
- Welcome to Coaching for Managers Specialization Course 4: Coaching Conversations. In this first module we're going to focus on two common coaching conversations - an employee who consistently misses predetermined deadlines, and an employee dealing with a process change. By the end of this module, you should be able to differentiate between a developmental coaching approach and a directive management conversation, suggest strategies for both mindset and skill set coaching, and identify mindset and skill set gaps in employees. After a short introductory video, you will watch both an ineffective example, and effective, model example of how each type of conversation should be handled; we will wrap up each lesson with an in depth review and analysis of both the ineffective example and the effective example before you have the opportunity to check your understanding of the material.
- Former High Performer & Consistently Late to Work
- In this next module we'll focus on an employee who is a former high performer who is experiencing a skill set gap and an employee who is consistently late to work. By the end of this module you should be able to articulate some additional strategies for skill set coaching, such as peer mentoring, as well as be able to describe how to make use of the feedback loop in a coaching conversation. As in Module 1, after a short introductory video, you will watch both an ineffective example, and effective, model example of how each type of conversation should be handled. Then we will wrap up each lesson with an in-depth review and analysis of both the ineffective and effective example. A quiz at the end of the module will allow you to assess your understanding of the material.
- Dealing with Difficult Colleagues & Coaching the Coach
- In our last module covering techniques and strategies in common coaching conversations, we're going to go over how to coach someone who is dealing with difficult colleagues as well as how to coach a fellow coach-manager. In this module, you'll learn how to empower your employees to deal with their own problems (instead of fixing them for your employees) through coaching, be able to demonstrate the use of good questioning techniques and use of the Thought Model to not only to help identify issues but to help the employee come up with new solutions and thoughts, and, finally, how to apply coaching techniques you already know and use when coaching another coach-manager. We'll also discuss the importance of coaching the person in the room. As you're reviewing this material, think about how you can apply the strategies you learn in these videos to your coaching practice.
- Key Takeaways for Effective Coaching
- Before moving on to this course's specialization milestone, we're going to step back a bit and take a look at some final items to consider as you really begin to put everything you've learned throughout the specialization into practice within your organization. You'll be able to relate the importance of identifying an employee's thoughts, acknowledging an employee's strengths along with what needs to be worked on when coaching, making sure that an employee buys into the process and actually wants to participate in a coaching conversation. We'll wrap up with talking about how, like any skill, coaching takes practice, and making mistakes is part of the learning process.
- Milestone 3: Demonstrate Your Ability to Coach Effectively
- In this final module, it's time to actually prep for and have some coaching conversations. This is a true test for yourself to see how far you've come in this specialization and will help you reflect on areas in which you're already doing well and areas where you still may need a little work. This module contains an overview video discussing key ideas to consider when working on the milestone, as well as some review videos from earlier courses in the specialization that should help you as you work on the assignments related to this milestone. Good luck!
Taught by
Kris Plachy
