8/9/2019 Time to Say Bye Bye To Discipline and Counseling

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Time to say Bye Bye to Counseling and Discipline

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Many organizations today still use the discipline and counseling process as a way to deal

with or manage performance. For the most part, you can summarize it as 1-2-3 youre out, this of course is a bit of generalization, but you getthe picture. The process of counseling employees has never been pleasant for either party; it's the nature of conflict.

Counseling by nature is a reactive process, the employee tends to discover at some point in time that their actions or behavior werecontradictory to what was expected or the policy. The conversation tends to be uncomfortable, but more importantly, neither party typically

walks away feeling good about themselves, on the contrary, they tend to be de-motivated. Not very different than for most of us growing upas children, when we made a mistake, we knew that we would be sitting down with Mom or Dad to discuss the issue at hand, depending onhow old you are today, the outcome could have led to some form of corporal punishment. This of course reminds me of my days in Catholicschool, attending, "Our Sisters of Constant Agony," discipline was something you steered clear from.

Today organizations typically deal with three generations of workers, Boomers, GenX and Millennial or GenY. During the last 15 years, manyhave authored books on generational differences and what is typically characteristic of each generation. Typically, the authors are careful notto suggest that they may be stereotyping, but rather focus on what they perceive to be characteristic of each generation. What I've learnedwhile gathering data is that generations are similar and dissimilar. Understanding the dissimilarities can be very advantageous to anorganization by providing insight into what motivates their employees, or at the same time, what demotivates them.

There appears to be less tolerance from GenX and GenY for counseling or discipline, Boomers have grown up in that world and learned toaccept it as a part of their professional life, albeit, not by choice.

We've learned that coaching to improve performance:

proactive a relationship driven process the process used to help employees gain the knowledge, skills, and abilities they need to become proficient at their jobs and the

motivation necessary to keep them engaged and productive

the process of equipping people with the tools, knowledge, and opportunities they need Split infinitive and be effective in theircommitment to themselves, the company, and their work an ego-less process in which coach-able moments are created to draw out distinctions and promote shifts in thinking and behavior,

and

a professional discipline and skill set, which enhance performance, actionThe benefits of coaching are quite significant, coaching does:

Improve employee and organizational resiliency and effectiveness in change

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deal with employee growth, development, and achievement by removing roadblocks to performance and enhancing creativity use all of ones knowledge and experience to enable the person being coached to create and develop their own best practices,

connections and resources, and

Provide information to support those they coach in developing their own skills and knowledgeCoaching has never been more necessary than now and into the future, where change will be the norm and individual resilience, andperformance will be crucial to team and organizational success.

Leverages individual strengths and abilities for maximum performance provide for direct on-the-job learning as well as just-in-time learning tailored to the particular situation enables behavioral shifts, and allows projects and people to move forward immediately and with less effort meet changing business demands.Does it work? Absolutely, we've used this approach in several organizations, and the results are excellent. Higher engagement, betterrelationships and improved collaboration. Coaching deepens the commitment to personal, professional and organizational goals.

John Prpich

Owner/Employee