Some companies seem to have forgotten that training is a means and not an end. What does this have to do with coaching? Follow me, now you will see.
What is the training for? It seems that there are many companies that use it to meet a budget. Of course this is not so, but it seems. It is as if they have forgotten that training is a means of pursuing the improvement of company results. What kind of improvement of results specifically? Those that occur as a consequence of increasing the level of knowledge and skills of the staff. Point.
When a company detects a deficiency in the performance of its personnel, which is attributable to a lack of skills or knowledge, the option of establishing a training process may be considered.
If this process is well designed and properly implemented, this level of performance may increase.
When the deficiency in staff performance level is NOT due to a lack of skills or knowledge, training will not eliminate this deficiency.
Following Gilbert, performance level deficiencies are basically caused by:
* Lack of information (the employee does not know what to do, does not know when to finish it, believes that there is a better way of doing things than what they have proposed, believes that what he is going to do will not work…)
* Lack of means or tools.
* Lack of appropriate consequences (the employee anticipates negative consequences for doing what he is supposed to do or the employee loses nothing by not maintaining the level of performance that he is supposed to maintain)
* Employee personal problems or lack of reasons.
* Lack of employee skills
* Lack of skills or knowledge.
* The latter being the most expensive to eliminate (T. Gilbert, Human Competency: Engineering Worthy Performance).
Over the past few years I have seen many companies embarking on impressive training processes that were not supported by an improvement in the level of staff performance: the training processes that were done or improving the level of staff skills and knowledge, or the deficiencies in performance were linked to a lack of knowledge or skills. Not surprisingly, the training is then tagged as unhelpful. It seems as if some of these companies need to justify their training department. Of course not, but it seems.
What about Coaching? That's what we are going for. A training process is justified only insofar as it is linked to an improvement in performance, and is inefficient if not so. The same happens with an executive coaching process.
If a company is not able to link a coaching process to improved performance, the person receiving the coaching is wasting its resources. Point.
Coaching is not a panacea. Coaching is a means that should be subject to its end: improving performance (through increasing the level of awareness about the options of the coaching, through improving their strategies in decision-making, to through supporting performance, through effective monitoring or through whatever the coach uses as a resource).
Used in this way, coaching appears as a very effective resource, a resource capable of producing incredible results. But I'm afraid. I fear that coaching will become fashionable as an end in itself. "I'm going to sign up for a coaching process because I've heard a lot about it lately." Or worse: "I'm going to point Fulanito to a coaching process so they can fix it." Danger to the eye.
But I am a coach, the fact that coaching processes become popular is something that favors me, right ?. Not necessarily. I don't want to hear companies talk about coaching as about training: it doesn't work, it doesn't get what it promised, it's not a panacea. Of course not, why isn't it. It is only a resource that takes on its meaning insofar as it facilitates an end.
What is this end is something that you must decide. Then you will think of the most suitable means to achieve it.
