CEOs and executives helm the ship by encouraging their crew to work together and use resources at hand. Although some guide their teams safely to their destination, others end up lost at sea. Organizational and executive coaches can help leaders keep their teams on track when they begin to flounder.

5 Suggestions from the Hogan Coaching Network for Building an Effective Development Framework
1. Provide education and training. Formal programs, classes, or workshops; coaching; mentoring; webinars; or on-the-job training are all valuable resources to build and reinforce an employee’s skills and improve performance.
2. Leverage strengths. If a leader lacks creative and innovative ability but excels in effective teambuilding, he or she can leverage his or her ability to create an environment that facilitates and nurtures the team’s new and different ideas.
3. Compensate with alternative behaviors. Use positive behaviors to rebuild a reputation marked by counterproductive behaviors. As positive behaviors are demonstrated multiple times, the manager’s reputation will begin to change, and often new behaviors become the person’s natural behaviors.
4. Support weakness with resources. When someone has a clear weakness, such as micromanaging, sometimes the most effective development strategy is to compensate by supporting the employee with additional resources, such as a direct report who excels at dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s.
5. Redesign the job or assignment. More effective than allowing an individual’s performance to flag, it is sometimes possible to alter an individual’s job requirements to remove key roles or responsibilities and assign him or her elsewhere in the organization.

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As more organizations are forced to do more with less, speed coaching provides a fast, agile and cost-effective way to enhance the performance of key employees before they derail.

The viability of an organization depends upon the quality of its future leaders, yet limited resources often pose significant obstacles to providing them with necessary coaching and development. During her session at GSC SHRM, titled “Speed Coaching – Limited Resources but Unlimited Development,” Patricia Kellett, director of the Hogan Coaching Network, shared several strategies for using speed coaching to develop future leaders.

Trish discussed how speed coaching can be effective in changing behavior by sharing a case study of Bob, an employee who was recently promoted to supply chain manager for his company. Although Bob knows the business well and is effective at relationship building, his supervisor hears from team members that Bob’s meetings tend to go on for too long, and that he is indecisive, not open to new ideas, and gets overwhelmed by a more assertive employee.

As Bob is proficient in several key areas of his role, she explained, it would be a waste of time and resources to have him go through the typical linear development cycle. Instead, it is more effective to provide him with speed coaching in the few areas in which he needs improvement. By providing targeted speed coaching that builds on his existing strengths and develops his competency companions, or the existing skills that can be used to improve his performance in other areas, he can be a more effective leader.

To ensure an organization has a pipeline of future leaders it can count on to assume key positions, it is imperative to understand the assets and liabilities of these individuals. As each company has several team members who may not be perfect, but are still too good to lose, their supervisors need to provide targeted development that prepares them to meet future needs. Through speed coaching, they can provide their high potential employees with fast and effective development that drives their performance, but won’t drain financial resources.