20 Jan Growth Coaches are In, Performance Managers are Out 

If global mobility managers want to bring out the best from their assignees, they have to start acting more like growth coaches instead of as the traditional performance managers. The same holds true for human resource leaders with the dozens, if not hundreds, of employees placed under their mandate. 

This is one trend that is becoming increasingly dominant in 2020. According to CRM Destination, managers who perform coaching functions, as opposed to acting as just bosses-cum-taskmasters, report an 18 percent increase in the quality of the output of their teams. The revenues are also compelling, especially for executives who want to optimize their manpower: “the managers who behave more like coaches” empower their teams to bring in an additional $4.3 million to the table.

What makes a growth coach different? And why do they reportedly yield better results?   While a typical team leader or department manager is assigned to monitor and motivate their members to achieve certain targets, a growth coach looks beyond those deliverables and takes into account the overall development of the employee or assignee. 

Elucidat elaborates further by pointing out that under the regular performance management grid, an employee or assignee is assessed according to how they reach specific goals that will benefit the company. 

Growth coaching also takes that into consideration; however, it also looks at the other means by which the staffer contributes to the company. It also weighs their potentials including other ancillary skills and nurtures them. 

Traditional performance management may be too siloed-based; growth coaching is more holistic and aligns the individual’s skills, values, abilities, and leanings with the long-term vision and plans of the organization.

As CRM Destination put it, a growth coach does see to it that the job gets done — but they also ensure that the employee or assignee develops their potential during the process. 

One other factor that sets a different tone to growth coaching is trust. Growth coaches can be successful only insofar as they engender trust from their team members. The work they do invites the employee to lower their defenses, be open about their insecurities and concerns, and confess their own dreams and aspirations. At the same time, the subordinate has to believe that the growth coaches will not use this newly established vulnerability against them. 

This kind of professional and emotional exposure is not necessarily present in the traditional performance management process. 

Employees who fear or distrust their immediate managers will clam up or go on the defensive. Over the years, as trust between all parties develops, the walls go down. Still, trust remains an option, albeit a preferred one, in performance management. Growth coaches, however, have to establish it from the very beginning. 

A popular proverb says that an organization is only as strong as the quality of its workforce, from small-to-medium-sized companies to the winners in Northern California.  

Take that idea one step further, and hold that that organization can grow only so far as its own human capital management is likewise growing. This is where growth coaching comes in. Global mobility managers are highly advised to take on the role, especially in a business landscape that continually expands their base for globalization.