Coaching and providing feedback for improved performance

Coaching and Providing Feedback for Improved Performance
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Coaching and Providing Feedback for Improved Performance
Coaching and providing feedback are some of the qualities of great managers and team leaders. A lot was learned from the two concepts of communication strategies. Coaching involves providing information, advising, training and guiding employees to better their performance (De Janasz et al., 2015). Coaching is about making average employees have extraordinary performance. This is possible through frequent interaction, and both parties involved always benefit. Coaching in organizations builds team spirit and also endorses individual’s abilities and skills. Coaching enhances the unique talents of individuals hence improving their ability to perform. Successful coaches use problem-solving discussions and analysis of situations to foster creativity hence improving performance.
Providing feedback involves providing information on employee performance compared to the expected performance (De Janasz et al., 2015). The quote, “Many receive advice; only the wise profit from it,” highlights the importance of feedback. Advice is in case refers to feedback; only those who respond to the feedback benefit from the feedback. Those who do not act on the feedback or ask for more information on the feedback do not benefit. Feedback, when delivered and received appropriately, improves employees hence increased productivity. However, not everyone enjoys feedbacks- both managers and employees.

Feedback is always associated with criticism. Employees are likely to become defensive when provided with negative feedback. Managers are also uncomfortable when giving negative feedbacks.
Providing feedback is important for organizations, and Cargill can attest to this. Cargill is a firm that produces and distributes agricultural products. Since the operating environment of businesses is always changing, the management wanted to aid its employees adapt to these changes. A study conducted showed that managers were reluctant to provide feedback (CEB HR, 2014). The management came up with an approach to respond to the problem, referred to as Everyday Performance Management. One of the aims of the approach was to improve the employee-manager relationship. The focus was to build on skills such as feedback delivery, coaching and effective two-way communication (CEB HR, 2014). Another study on the Everyday Performance Management showed that 69% of the employees had received useful feedback from their managers and 70% of the employees felt more valued (CEB HR, 2014). The importance of providing feedback can therefore not be understated.
Another potential concept for communication strategies is having one on one conversation; between employees and managers. Nowadays, most of the communication is done through technological platforms such as emails and telephones. Having one on one conversation builds trust and open working relationships in an organization. It also makes employees feel more valued. All these increase productivity of an organization.
As discussed, it is evident that providing feedback and coaching, as communication strategies, increases productivity in an organization. For managers who are reluctant to provide feedback, is there a way to encourage them to provide feedback? And for employees who consider feedback as criticism, is there a way to make them open to the idea of receiving feedback?
References
CEB HR (2014). Why Cargill Excels at Performance Management | CEB Blogs. Cebglobal.com. Retrieved 31 January 2018, from https://www.cebglobal.com/blogs/everyday-performance-management-at-cargill-a-best-practice-case-study/De Janasz, S., Dowd, K. & Schneider, B. (2015). Interpersonal skills in organizations (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.