How performance coaching helps in various sectors

I was a guinea pig for testing a game which was based on performance coaching a few days back. It was an extremely interesting game and quite different from any other I had ever played before. While it was a typical board game where you have to roll a dice and move forward based on the number you roll, it also had a very unique theme. Every time you moved forward on the board, depending upon the spot you landed on, you had to pick a certain card. And these cards were all based on the skills required to be successful at performance coaching.

While I had a great time playing the game it also made me think. It made me realise how performance coaching was needed by practically every individual at some time or the other in his or her life. It was what could help tackle obstacle and barriers that hinder our progress and accelerate us to the next level. So here I am listing down how it can help professionals from different sectors and roles:

1.      Sales – Performance Coaching can do wonders to an individual’s sales performance. Sales professionals require dedicated efforts in first finding good quality leads and then trying to close on what they have to offer. Sometimes they can tend to lose track of the direction in which they are going and may go astray. They may even land up making efforts in the wrong direction by tapping the wrong customers or offering the wrong solutions. That’s when their performance goes for a toss and they may require the help of an external person who can show them the mirror and help them get back on track. Sales also being a function which needs to face the maximum amount of rejection can take a toll on some salesperson’s confidence levels. And that’s where performance coaching can also help them.

2.      Customer Service – Handling irate customers can be really difficult. The first and foremost thing that you have to watch out for is your own emotions. An irate customer can really press your buttons and we all know how we land up reacting to that! Performance coaching can help in improving the emotional intelligence of an individual. It can help get the person in touch with their own emotions and show them ways of managing them better. This helps the individual in having good control over himself which in turn makes it easy for them to handle even the toughest customer!

3.      Managers – A Manager’s job is to handle not just his own tasks but also those of his team members. And believe me, having to do all of that can be quite intimidating especially if you are new to the field! Coaching your team members becomes an important part of your responsibility and when you are inexperienced in the domain, that’s when you really realise that you need Performance Coaching yourself! By going through the process yourself and by understanding how to manage your own developmental areas, it becomes easier to guide others. Besides, the impact and influence of a strong and sorted manager is very different and one that every team member would be willing to follow.

So those were some benefits of Corporate training in some of the roles that immediately came to my mind.

Have you ever been through Performance Coaching yourself? We would love to hear how it helped you. So do write in and share your story with us…

Know how your organisational culture affects productivity

Every organisation has its own culture. And this culture is very well reflected in the way its people work and interact with each other within the organisation as well as outside the organisation. Some Organisational culture workshops aim at understanding the pulse of the current culture of the organisation and looking at what can be done to enhance the same. Others, on the other hand, may be simply a sharing of the culture the top management wants its people to follow.

An organisation’s culture is mainly driven by its top management. It’s basically a top-down approach. The way the top management of the organisation operates and treats its people, gets pretty much replicated by the rest of the organisation. Hence, the top management forms a major stakeholder in every organisational culture workshop.

The culture of an organisation is very important. It is what gives rise to a particular environment in the organisation, which in turn directly affects their productivity.

Culture is based on the vision, mission and values that the organisation lives by. These truly drive the organisation and run like blood through its veins. They tell people how the organisation wants them to behave and in what direction they need to head to be successful. It therefore fosters the communication within the organisation and also the way people are treated. And we all know how engagement and productivity changes when we feel valued in our organisations!

Hence, an organisation’s culture is not something that can be taken lightly. And if it’s not something you have been giving too much importance to, it’s time to think again. First find out what the current organisational culture is. You can do it through a survey that all your employees fill or through an organisational culture workshop which has activities that help you sense the same. Then bring your top management team together and ask them to brainstorm and come to a conclusion as to what they would want it to be.  Now you can run organisation wide organisational culture workshops which actually tell employees how the culture needs to be. To make it easy for them this can be shown in the form of observable behaviours that they can display. And can be done very effectively through various games and activities which simulate the work environment and tell people how they need to behave in various situations.  Thus organisational culture workshops can set the context very well and aid the top management in building a culture where their people are prospering and taking the organisation to a new level.

Organisational culture workshops are not as common as other workshops like Communication Skills, Managerial Skills, Personality Development, etc. However, they are crucial. They require the leaders of the organisation to have very high awareness levels and an acceptance that the current culture may not be the best and may need a change. After all, only when the leaders are open to change, can change be driven through the rest of the organisation. And it’s the leaders who need to walk that change. And organisational culture workshops can aid largely in that.

TEAM BUILDING TRAINING FOR EXCELLENT BUSINESS GROWTH

There’s no doubt that trainings help in developing people which eventually helps in business growth. But what do you think of team building trainings? Do they help in business growth?

I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m asking you this question. When I already said that trainings contribute to business growth, team building trainings should do the same, right? Then why do you think I’m still asking you if team building trainings serve that purpose too?

That’s because, many a time team building training is considered as an outing or a form of recreation for employees taken offsite. In fact, we get a lot of such enquiries where organisations want to conduct team building trainings as a part of their team outings for fun. They actually insist on keeping the debriefs minimal. And hence sometimes team building trainings are not taken very seriously and may be considered as simply a way to have fun.

I, on the other hand, personally feel that team building trainings are the most important one’s for business growth. This is the time when the whole team is together and away from work. They can therefore focus on bonding with each other and build those bonds that will help them back at work.

Yes, fun definitely is a big motive of team building trainings. Fun is what keeps the atmosphere light and creates a space where people enjoy mingling and getting to know each other better. And when they know each other better and bond better, a very different level of trust is created. This results in working together more efficiently, and eventually more productivity and business growth.

How? Because when you trust your team members, you are more open to each other in your ways and thought processes. This reduces conflict big time and you actually enjoy working together. And that’s when you become more productive and an overall happier team.

Team building training provides a platform where teams and team members can get aware of how they operate in and as a team. They can then work on becoming a better team to achieve better results.

So I’m sure you now know why I feel team building trainings should be given highest priority! They do after all serve multiple purposes like effective communication skills, learning, awareness, development, growth, business results, efficient teams, well bonded and motivated teams, better workplace environment and most importantly, fun! Team building training is truly a buffet!