The science of success: Applying behavioral principles in targeted coaching

Our previous blog detailed the value of behavioral coaching and the benefits of offering development initiatives to your employees. Employee coaching can improve business outcomes, such as employee retention, employee productivity (Forbes), and ROI (ICF). So why don’t leaders and managers coach their employees more often? This blog will explore that question and outline the steps to support effective coaching and build a coaching culture. Our goal is to empower leaders to coach confidently at any stage of their coaching journey.

“I don’t know how”: Leaders don't feel enabled to coach effectively

Leaders may hesitate to engage in coaching due to a lack of confidence or unclear expectations. This stems from an organizational culture that doesn’t prioritize coaching or define responsibilities like frequency, duration, and desired outcomes.

The biggest obstacle to effective coaching is a lack of training, with 58% of managers reporting never receiving any leadership training (Big Think). Integrating coaching into daily interactions is essential to foster a culture that values coaching. Offering training on how to set specific goals and emphasizing the benefits of coaching is a significant first step.
Training can also show leaders how to incorporate coaching into routine activities and highlight its positive impact on employee performance, team dynamics, and business outcomes (e.g., retention and performance), motivating them to embrace coaching.

Steps in behavioral coaching

The key message for leaders is that behavioral coaching isn’t complex—it’s simply a more effective way to have the conversations they’re already having. Leaders can apply behavioral coaching anytime during on-the-job conversations. While it can also occur in scheduled meetings, it’s not required. In both cases, there are key steps to follow when engaging in behavioral coaching.

The steps outlined below are an accessible guide for new and experienced coaches:

1. Assessment: Crucial at the start of coaching, the assessment phase involves using tools like 360-degree feedback, interviews, and behavioral inventories, followed by sharing the results with the employee. For example, the Infor Talent Science assessment measures various behavioral and cognitive characteristics. Assessments should establish a baseline for the employee’s behavioral preferences, and coaches should understand the results well enough to explain them effectively.
2. Goal setting: Using insights from the assessment, coaches and employees should set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound) goals to keep coaching efforts focused and on track.
3. Developing a relationship: Building trust early is essential. Coaches should understand the employee’s view of coaching, address misconceptions, and ask questions to show concern, build trust, and gain insights.
4. Intervention: During the intervention stage, coaches help employees practice successful job behaviors. This may involve asking questions, reflecting on behavioral preferences, revisiting past challenges, or preparing for upcoming tasks. The goal is to build on assessment results and reinforce effective behaviors.
5. Evaluation: Continuous evaluation and feedback are critical to assess progress toward goals. It allows for mid-course adjustments, which can enhance outcomes. Standard methods include questionnaires about employee reactions and ongoing assessments that measure how job behaviors change and ultimately lead to stronger performance.

Getting started with challenge-focused coaching

As mentioned earlier, coaching can occur as opportunities arise. One practical approach for leaders to ease into coaching is challenge-focused coaching. This method involves meeting employees where they are and addressing immediate challenges or opportunities in their daily work routine.

In the first blog, we provided a detailed example of coaching an employee struggling to be an effective team member. We’ll continue with this example, where Jessica (the manager) coaches David (the employee) on improving his teamwork skills.

Our scenario starts when Jessica’s team members express concerns that David struggles to collaborate and incorporate others’ feedback on a project. Jessica needs to address this challenge with David effectively. Since he has taken the Infor Talent Science Assessment, she can review his behavioral report to understand what is happening.

From his results, Jessica learns that he prefers to work independently rather than with others. She also understands that success in this role requires teamwork. By recognizing David’s work preferences, Jessica can start a conversation with David, exploring why he prefers to work independently. She builds trust and understanding with him by acknowledging that independent work can sometimes be beneficial.

Next, Jessica can discuss the benefits of collaborating with others, especially for the current project, and set short- and long-term goals for David. In the short term, David will schedule regular check-ins with his team members and ask for feedback on his specific tasks during those meetings.

He can start with smaller tasks or contributions but should become more comfortable requesting more feedback later. Jessica and David can role-play this scenario before it occurs. Jessica will continue to support and check in with David to monitor his progress as he engages in more collaborations.
After this project is completed, Jessica and David can debrief to highlight what went well and identify areas for improvement. They can continue working together towards the long-term goals set during their initial coaching conversations.

In this example, Jessica used a challenge as an opportunity to improve David’s collaboration skills by coaching him on that specific behavior. By focusing on an actual work situation (i.e., being a more collaborative team member) and understanding David’s preferences and tendencies that likely contributed to this challenge, Jessica could tailor her coaching to David’s specific needs, helping him practice his skills in real time, and providing actionable feedback to modify his behavior.

Growth-focused coaching

Once leaders like Jessica begin to see the benefits of challenge-focused coaching, they are more likely to engage in growth-focused coaching. In this phase, coaches expand the coaching conversation to include growth opportunities, using the same insights from a behavioral assessment.

Jessica and David agree to have ongoing development discussions, focusing on a few behavioral characteristics as growth opportunities. They start with David’s workplace innovation. David tends to rely on traditional approaches and processes he is familiar with and is not eager to explore new ways of completing tasks. Instead, he sticks with proven methods that he trusts.

Jessica wants to help David embrace more innovative ways of thinking, both for his individual tasks and team projects. The goal isn’t fundamentally changing David but encouraging him to step slightly outside his comfort zone for professional growth. Together, Jessica and David set a goal for him to introduce a new approach to their next team task by their subsequent discussion.

At their next meeting, David shared that he successfully implemented a new task management tool to track project progress and assign tasks to team members. Previously, they communicated these updates via email. David receives positive feedback from the team about the process improvement, and he finds the tool much easier to use than sorting through emails. Overall, this coaching engagement was successful, helping David expand his comfort zone while feeling supported by his manager, Jessica.

A culture of coaching

Coaches must build trust, actively listen, and provide constructive feedback to be effective. A trusting relationship is the foundation of effective coaching, even if a prior relationship exists. Active listening involves:

• Understanding the full context and underlying emotions
• Empowering employees to solve problems independently
• Fostering growth

Feedback should focus on actions and behaviors to encourage continuous development. By addressing these barriers and adopting these strategies, leaders can create a coaching culture that benefits individual employees and drives organizational success.

Organizations can foster a coaching culture that promotes continuous improvement by tackling common challenges leaders face, such as lack of confidence and insufficient training. Challenge-focused coaching is a good starting point, helping leaders guide employees through pressing challenges, while growth-focused coaching can modify behaviors needed to achieve long-term goals.