Employee Engagement Performance Management Certificate 2024

Welcome to "Discover You: Self-Aware Leadership Exercise (Part 1)," a transformative journey into the heart of self-awareness and its profound impact on leadership. In this engaging session, we invite you to embark on the first part of a transformative exercise designed to unveil your unique leadership potential through introspection and reflection.

This session is your opportunity to delve into the core of self-awareness – the cornerstone of effective leadership.

Clarity

Clarity, according to Gallup's research organization, and their dissection of more than a million employee and manager interviews from companies around the world found that employees who are engaged and immersed in striving to help create a high performing team, have something in common. What they have in common is clarity. The number one response that according to their research is correlated with employee engagement is "I know what is expected of me at work".  To say it another the number one element of great managing is proving your team with clarity.

Lecture Transcript

This transcript was captured and transcribed automatic transcription software. The transcribed content is derived from a live recording of this lecture.  Please excuse any auto-generated spelling, wording discrepancies, or grammatical errors. This transcript is provided as a way to supplement your learning experience.

Intended Reputation

Think of a time when you were surrounded by people whose attitude and, tone and intentions were aligned with yours. It works pretty well

As a coach and a leader, setting an intention regarding what you want from the team, will set you in the right direction while removing ambiguity for your team members.

The intention of the team molds the dynamics of human interaction and establishes your internal team culture.

EXERCISE

To set the foundation for high-performing team culture, think about and then, I'd recommend writing out, a description of the reputation you want your team to be known for.

Perhaps you want your team to be known for being, hard-working, quick to respond, and productive", or maybe you want your team to be known for being skilled, conscientious and driven". . . in other words, if a project gets put in your hands, the sponsor of that project would know based on your reputation, that your team will do a good job, and that the work will be done with exacting detail and delivered on time.

SAMPLE INTENDED REPUTATION (Department of Defense client)

"We go above and beyond in every capacity in order to support the war-fighter (their end customer)".

One reason that setting a team intention is a precondition to coaching, is that from a big picture standpoint, the intention that you set for your team, and that you verbalize and work toward, will enable you to establish standards on which to offer both corrective feedback and coaching to maximize performance.

At the end of this section, there is an assignment centered on establishing what you intend your team's reputation to be.

You'll be asked to give it some thought and then articulate your intended reputation in 25 words or less.

Step into a world of heightened productivity, job satisfaction, and organizational success with "Engaging Excellence: Unveiling the Essence of Employee Engagement." In this captivating lecture, we embark on a journey to understand the core elements of employee engagement and its transformative impact on workplaces.

This session serves as your gateway to unravel the layers of employee engagement.

Welcome to a new chapter of exploration and learning as we introduce the next section of our course: "Embarking on a New Section: Introduction." In this dynamic session, we invite you to discover what lies ahead and gain a comprehensive understanding of the exciting topics and insights that await you.

Dive into the heart of employee engagement as we unveil the pivotal forces that fuel a motivated and productive workforce. "Unveiling Employee Engagement's Three Drivers" takes you on a captivating journey to understand the essential elements that underpin a thriving and committed workforce.

In this enlightening session, we explore the three fundamental drivers of employee engagement.

As we wrap up this insightful section, join us for a reflective journey as we embark on "Harvesting Wisdom: Unearthing Key Takeaways and Insights from the Section." In this enlightening session, we'll revisit the essential concepts, discoveries, and insights that have enriched your understanding.

This session serves as a guidepost, offering a comprehensive review of the key takeaways and invaluable insights that you've gained throughout the section.

We'll dive into the heart of crafting effective employee engagement strategies guided by key research-based statements. In this thought-provoking session, "Crafting Employee Engagement Strategies from Key Research-Based Statements," we explore the intersection of empirical insights and actionable approaches.

This session is your gateway to unlocking the power of data-driven strategies that enhance employee engagement.

Step into the world of leadership excellence as we unveil the remarkable insights behind the "4 Dynamic Tendencies." In this captivating session, "Unlocking Leadership Excellence: Unveiling the 4 Dynamic Tendencies," we embark on a journey to understand and leverage the diverse qualities that shape outstanding leadership.

This session serves as your guide to navigate the intricate tapestry of leadership tendencies.

In this lecture we'll decode the intricate qualities that define effective leadership. In "Leadership: Decoding (D)ominance, (I)nfluence, (S)teadiness, and (C)onscientious," we delve into the heart of these distinct personality dimensions that shape leadership styles and approaches.

This enlightening session invites you to uncover the essence of each quality – Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness – and their significance in leadership

Complimentary DISC assessment (download, instructions, reflection questions tailored to each style)

DESC is a practical tool for approaching and solving challenges involving performance issues. DESC outlines a process for giving effective Feedback. It's also a wonderful tool for you as a manager of a high-performing team to teach as a universal process, something that everyone on the team can use.

DESC stands for Describe - Explain - Specify - Commit.

For example, I'm having some difficulty with a colleague. We work on the same project and their work is either not on time, or they dispute that that a particular aspect of the workload should be theirs. They think responsibility should be elsewhere.

So when describing, the description should be based on factual, observable evidence, as opposed to opinion and interpretation. So I would strip out all the "filler opinion" . "They are an idiot and horrible at their job" "They don't respect me or the team . . . and they don't care about quality". What I also doing is stripping away all of my emotional reaction and not allowing my emotion about the situation to "taint" how I describe the situation. Describe is about stating the facts as they occurred.

The next step is to EXPLAIN. Explaining involves making it clear to the other person how the facts impact you, impact your team, your organization, or your project. The explain step is the Effect part of a Cause/Effect relationship. Explaining is not about blaming. Instead, explaining is about running the full course of thought from the facts to how they affect the team.

The Specify step is about revealing your suggestions on how things could work better moving forward. In this step you want to engage the other person for their input and ideas. It's a negotiation phase. It's the back-and-forth dialog phase where you make a suggestion or put an idea out there, but then invite the other person into that idea to discuss it.

Commit - Commitment comes after the Describing, Explaining and Specifying steps. At this point you've likely come to at least some agreement on what needs to be done. You may not be at full agreement and that is okay, wherever you are in terms of desired outcomes and action steps, you'll want to make some formal commitment to getting things done. The best practice is to write down on paper, or to memorialize in some form or fashion the actions you both agreed to take. The commitment step is vital. Without a commitment to do something different moving forward, you'll wind up in the same exact place with the same exact issue.

Whether you're new to coaching or you're a seasoned Leader/Manager, it's helpful to have a structured model for moving through your coaching conversations.

The G.R.O.W framework provides you with a organized way of structuring your coaching conversations . . . keeping them focused, effective and action-oriented.

The G.R.O.W model is the focus of this section.  As you'll discover, the G.R.O.W model can be worked through quickly . . . five or ten minutes, or if time permits you can also use this model during an extended coaching or training session.

G.R.O.W = Goal. Reality. Options. Will Do

If you've already been exposed to the G.R.O.W model, your aim in this section should be to discover one new idea on how to use it effectively.   If this is your first introduction to G.R.O.W, get ready for some "Yeah! I can definitely use that" moments.

Let's get started!

GROW

The acronym GROW stands for Goal, Reality, Options, and the Will Do . . . as in what will you commit to doing? When will you do it by, and what is your first step?

Like with any coaching model the idea is to internalize the process and then allow that process, or that structure to become fluid. So as you practice you'll notice that you'll likely move in and out of the various aspects of the GROW model with some regularity. The model acts a support to your coaching.

The first stage is Goal Setting

Whether you're brand new to coaching or you're a seasoned coach manager, it's pretty obvious that goals and goal progress are extremely important. Human beings are goal seeking creatures by nature. Part of what separates us from other species is the cognitive desire to have, or to create, something different, or better than what we have today.

When you sit down with your employee you'll want to start the coaching discussing by agreeing upon a Goal for the Session itself . . . so this is the first level of goal setting. The goal for the session could be just about anything. Maybe the goal of the session is to leave the session or meeting with an action plan, or greater self-awareness.

After determining the Goal of the Session itself, next you want to establish a specific Performance Goal. A performance goal provides the employee something tangible to "latch" onto. Performance goals establish metrics that are easily checked-off as being either complete or incomplete. For example, the employee may set a goal to bring-in ten new customers over the next thirty days, or to complete a project by Friday of this week.

While you're working with your employee on setting the actual Performance Goal, there are three essential things to consider, and they are PSM... Possibility, Specificity and Medium Risk.

The first thing to consider is Possibility. .. Does the goal fall within a reasonable range of expected completion?

For instance...as a manager in an office of about thirty, many years ago, I had a new employee that came to me with their goal of being put in charge of one of our established satellite offices within one month of employment. While I admire and certainly respect the enthusiasm, I also knew that there was no reason to expect that this goal would actually be reached, so we worked to pare down the goal, and instead establish something more reasonable and attainable.

Specificity: Next thing is that you want to make sure the goal is very specific. Can the employee verbalize the goal in a clear, concise way? What are the qualities of that goal . . . how will the coachee know if they've achieved the goal...what are the metrics? Also how much time do they need to reach that specific goal?

The third to consider in the Goal Setting stage of the Grow Model, is what is referred to as Medium Risk. Medium Risk is somewhat of a nebulous concept, because, it is different for each situation, but medium risk refers to setting a goal that is complex enough to challenge the employee, but not so difficult that it causes undue anxiety. Medium Risk goals are considered the sweet spot in the science of goal setting, and as your employee begins having success in achieving these medium risk goals, they will also feel excited about and engaged in their work.

The second stage in the Grow Model is a check of the current Reality.

This is self-awareness building phase. It is where together in the coaching session you establish the "AS IS". So for instance, if the goal that was set in the previous stage is 'to submit a technical project by the 15th of next month', you'll want to gain clarity on where the project currently stands, and any barriers that might arise.

Here are some examples of clarity generating question that you can use in this phase.

· How would you describe the present situation?

· When you look at the situation what do you see?

· Hypothetically speaking, if this goal could be chunked into ten convenient steps, what step are you in right now?

· What have you tried so far?

· What haven't you tried but would like to?

· What, if anything, do you anticipate getting in the way of goal progress?

· What is your present level of performance in this area?

· What resources do you need, that you currently don't have, that will ensure that you reach your goal?

When using the model effectively, after you've gone through this Realty phase, your employee should be more self-aware about their current reality. They should have gained some new insights and perhaps even some, Aha moments.

The next phase in the model is where you guide your client, in this context your employee, in generating all possible Options and solutions.

This is a green-light thinking phase , and it serves the purpose of getting ideas on the table. Ideas that will help the coachee achieve the goal.

In this phase you want to be attuned to your employee. You'll want to help them generate as many ideas as possible.

Some questions that you can ask during this phase include;

· How can you achieve this goal?

· In an ideal world what would the path to goal completion look like?

· What other options exist to help you along?

· What are some actions you could take that would produce different results than what your currently getting?

· How might someone else with completely different experience than you . . . how might they approach this?

Once you've completed the Options phase of the grow model, you're employee will have much better visibility into all the potential ways that they can achieve their desired outcome.

Finally, the W stands for "Will Do" . . . as in what will you commit to doing? When will you do it by, and what is your first step.

This phase of the model is the decision -making stage. This is where you'll want to guide your client to funnel their ideas into a firm commitment.

What's wonderful about working through this model is that instead of your coachee committing to goals that haven't been well thought-out, they'll be making a clear decision to move forward on a goal that is both informed and that can be realistically achieved.

At this stage of the coaching discussion, your questions are centered exclusively on,

· What exactly will you commit to doing?

· Who else, if anyone, needs to be involved?

· When will you begin?

· What is the first step you can take to reach your goal?

· Etc...

Additional G.R.O.W Sample Questions

Goal

What is it that you'd like to achieve?

What are your 3-6 month aspirations?

What are you 1-5 year goals?

Have you ever set a similar goal to this? If so, did you reach that goal?

What inspires you about this particular goal?

What challenges do you anticipate in reaching your goal?

What plans do you have in place when obstacles arise?

What metrics will you use to keep track of your goal progress?

Reality

What have you tried so far?

What would you like to try?

What might get in the way?

What resources do you need?

Options

How can you achieve this goal?

Ideally what does the path to goal completion look like?

What others things can help you along?

What actions might you take to get different results?

How might someone with entirely different experience approach this?

Will Do

Specifically, what do you commit to doing?

Who else needs to be involved in this?

When will you begin?

What is your first step and when will you take it?

GROW

The acronym GROW stands for Goal, Reality, Options, and the Will Do . . . as in what will you commit to doing? When will you do it by, and what is your first step?

Like with any coaching model the idea is to internalize the process and then allow that process, or that structure to become fluid. So as you practice you'll notice that you'll likely move in and out of the various aspects of the GROW model with some regularity. The model acts a support to your coaching.

The first stage is Goal Setting

Whether you're brand new to coaching or you're a seasoned coach manager, it's pretty obvious that goals and goal progress are extremely important. Human beings are goal seeking creatures by nature. Part of what separates us from other species is the cognitive desire to have, or to create, something different, or better than what we have today.

When you sit down with your employee you'll want to start the coaching discussing by agreeing upon a Goal for the Session itself . . . so this is the first level of goal setting. The goal for the session could be just about anything. Maybe the goal of the session is to leave the session or meeting with an action plan, or greater self-awareness.

After determining the Goal of the Session itself, next you want to establish a specific Performance Goal. A performance goal provides the employee something tangible to "latch" onto. Performance goals establish metrics that are easily checked-off as being either complete or incomplete. For example, the employee may set a goal to bring-in ten new customers over the next thirty days, or to complete a project by Friday of this week.

While you're working with your employee on setting the actual Performance Goal, there are three essential things to consider, and they are PSM... Possibility, Specificity and Medium Risk.

The first thing to consider is Possibility. .. Does the goal fall within a reasonable range of expected completion?

For instance...as a manager in an office of about thirty, many years ago, I had a new employee that came to me with their goal of being put in charge of one of our established satellite offices within one month of employment. While I admire and certainly respect the enthusiasm, I also knew that there was no reason to expect that this goal would actually be reached, so we worked to pare down the goal, and instead establish something more reasonable and attainable.

Specificity: Next thing is that you want to make sure the goal is very specific. Can the employee verbalize the goal in a clear, concise way? What are the qualities of that goal . . . how will the coachee know if they've achieved the goal...what are the metrics? Also how much time do they need to reach that specific goal?

The third to consider in the Goal Setting stage of the Grow Model, is what is referred to as Medium Risk. Medium Risk is somewhat of a nebulous concept, because, it is different for each situation, but medium risk refers to setting a goal that is complex enough to challenge the employee, but not so difficult that it causes undue anxiety. Medium Risk goals are considered the sweet spot in the science of goal setting, and as your employee begins having success in achieving these medium risk goals, they will also feel excited about and engaged in their work.

The second stage in the Grow Model is a check of the current Reality.

This is self-awareness building phase. It is where together in the coaching session you establish the "AS IS". So for instance, if the goal that was set in the previous stage is 'to submit a technical project by the 15th of next month', you'll want to gain clarity on where the project currently stands, and any barriers that might arise.

Here are some examples of clarity generating question that you can use in this phase.

· How would you describe the present situation?

· When you look at the situation what do you see?

· Hypothetically speaking, if this goal could be chunked into ten convenient steps, what step are you in right now?

· What have you tried so far?

· What haven't you tried but would like to?

· What, if anything, do you anticipate getting in the way of goal progress?

· What is your present level of performance in this area?

· What resources do you need, that you currently don't have, that will ensure that you reach your goal?

When using the model effectively, after you've gone through this Realty phase, your employee should be more self-aware about their current reality. They should have gained some new insights and perhaps even some, Aha moments.

The next phase in the model is where you guide your client, in this context your employee, in generating all possible Options and solutions.

This is a green-light thinking phase , and it serves the purpose of getting ideas on the table. Ideas that will help the coachee achieve the goal.

In this phase you want to be attuned to your employee. You'll want to help them generate as many ideas as possible.

Some questions that you can ask during this phase include;

· How can you achieve this goal?

· In an ideal world what would the path to goal completion look like?

· What other options exist to help you along?

· What are some actions you could take that would produce different results than what your currently getting?

· How might someone else with completely different experience than you . . . how might they approach this?

Once you've completed the Options phase of the grow model, you're employee will have much better visibility into all the potential ways that they can achieve their desired outcome.

Finally, the W stands for "Will Do" . . . as in what will you commit to doing? When will you do it by, and what is your first step.

This phase of the model is the decision -making stage. This is where you'll want to guide your client to funnel their ideas into a firm commitment.

What's wonderful about working through this model is that instead of your coachee committing to goals that haven't been well thought-out, they'll be making a clear decision to move forward on a goal that is both informed and that can be realistically achieved.

At this stage of the coaching discussion, your questions are centered exclusively on,

· What exactly will you commit to doing?

· Who else, if anyone, needs to be involved?

· When will you begin?

· What is the first step you can take to reach your goal?

· Etc...

Additional G.R.O.W Sample Questions

Goal

What is it that you'd like to achieve?

What are your 3-6 month aspirations?

What are you 1-5 year goals?

Have you ever set a similar goal to this? If so, did you reach that goal?

What inspires you about this particular goal?

What challenges do you anticipate in reaching your goal?

What plans do you have in place when obstacles arise?

What metrics will you use to keep track of your goal progress?

Reality

What have you tried so far?

What would you like to try?

What might get in the way?

What resources do you need?

Options

How can you achieve this goal?

Ideally what does the path to goal completion look like?

What others things can help you along?

What actions might you take to get different results?

How might someone with entirely different experience approach this?

Will Do

Specifically, what do you commit to doing?

Who else needs to be involved in this?

When will you begin?

What is your first step and when will you take it?

Establishing the Coaching Relationship

According to the research organization Gallup, as well as the Society of Training and Development, a major factor of whether or not an employee succeeds, is their relationship with you, their boss.

The beginning of the relationship is your time to demonstrate  that you either recognize already, or will be focused on and invested in discovering their potential.

During this stage set individual meetings with each team member and have an easy, non-directive, discussion with your team members . . . .

Lecture Transcript

This transcript was captured and transcribed automatic transcription software. The transcribed content is derived from a live recording of this lecture.  Please excuse any auto-generated spelling, wording discrepancies, or grammatical errors. This transcript is provided as a way to supplement your learning experience.

Coaching is Not Telling

As a manager who leads other people and who is also accountable for process, you'll likely have to switch in and out of various roles.

You'll switch in and out of being a Manger, Leader, Consultant and Coach. When each of the roles are combined you become a powerful change-agent, or a proficient Leader Manager.

One thing to recognize is that Coaching is unique to all the other roles you will play. As a coach you're helping that person unlock their very best self. You're guiding them as they discover how to maximize their own performance.

Good coaching from you, that is delivered from a place of mutual benefit, a win-win, not just I win you lose, good coaching that is thought provoking, that is focused on future outcomes, and that has positive objectives . . . this type of coaching is a significant catalyst for heightened overall employee engagement.

The easy approach to business coaching is to say that your coaching when in fact your acting in the role of a consultant. As a business consultant myself for many years I can tell you that consultants, ones that stay around for a while, are people who offer well though-out, direct and decisive advice.

The reason consultant are sometimes referred to as rain-makers is because as a consultant your role is to provide solutions, and to provide them in a compelling way.

Coaching on the other hand requires that you temporarily remove your consulting cap and resist your impulse to "fix the situation", "solve the problem" or "impose your own solution".

Coaching is NOT TELLING. Of course as a manager, there are times for telling. There are times for fixing and taking charge, but your coaching role is about you helping your employee learn rather than teaching them.

You can guide them in this learning process by asking open-ended questions that, in a Socratic way, help them on their own, arrive at viable solutions.

We'll talk more about effective questions later in the training, but for now, at this stage of the course, we're really interested in the coaching questions that you ask, or that you plan to ask as a way to help your employees reveal and maximize their potential.

There's an assignment within this section of the training where you'll be asked to share with the class three coaching questions. if you've never asked coaching questions before, just ask your manager or at a minimum do a Google search.

This assignment is a creative exercise to spark the coaching area of your brain, so don't spend too much time in concern of whether your questions are "good" or "bad". The fact that you're thinking about coaching questions is a good thing in and of itself.