[MUSIC] Welcome back. This next video is all about coaching someone who has been highly successful in the past, and for some reason, no longer is performing at a high level. This is an example of developmental accountability, I have certainly coached and managed this type of situation for many employees and I'll be honest I think I've probably even been this employee from time to time. Usually, there's a really good reason why a high performer suddenly isn't performing as well as he or she used to. So we have to be very thoughtful as a manager, and really apply our coaching algebra skills here to diagnose the situation. And unlike the last several videos, we'll talk about avoiding the temptation to undercoach these types of employees. Hoping that the situation will just resolve itself. These situations can be tough, but after watching this video you should be familiar with several strategies to work with these types of employees, and get them performing at a high level once again. This is an example of developmental accountability. And we're going to again discuss the traps to avoid as a manager, especially the ones to under-coach. We'll talk about why that can happen and the circumstance and how we use coaching algebra to help diagnose, this circumstance with this employee. These can be tough. I have certainly coached and managed this type of situation for many employees. And I'll be honest, I think I've probably been this employee, the high performer who all of a sudden isn't. And there's usually some really good reasons why, so we have to be very thoughtful of the manager and really apply our coaching Algebra skills here. So typically speaking, when we are working with someone who's been successful in the past, and now they're not, we pretty much have evidence to say, well they know what to do, right. Because they've done it before. So now we have to think, okay and so why are they choosing not to? What's getting in the way? What's preventing them? And some big things to think about when we're dealing with high performers whose performance drops off, there can be some pretty significant factors that are pretty consistent. One can be some sort of organizational change that has impacted them. It could be that the process is different, and they would tell you it's added time to their day or to what they have to do. There could be that there's some market changes or customer changes that have influenced them. So maybe they're not working with a customer they used to work with. They're working with a new type of customer that they're not used to working with. There can be changes in their management structure, so maybe they report directly to you, and before they reported to someone else. There can be changes in their peers, and there can also be changes that happen outside of work that influence them. Most of the time though when we're working with somebody who's at a high performance level and now they drop off, we need to consider what the thoughts are that they're having that are really, really influencing their changed results, okay. And so coaching this person, that's why we have to be careful not to under-coach. Because a lot of times our high performers are people we don't really spend a lot of time with unfortunately, and so when they start to not perform managers don't know what to do. And so a lot of times managers just get frustrated with these employees or mad that they're just not performing anymore, because they used to be so reliable. And so we have to be careful not to just dismiss it and under coach it and just assume they'll get back on track or that's their problem they need to figure it out, we don't want to do that, we really want to help the employee diagnose. What is it that's going on? What are you thinking about everyday? What are you telling yourself is in the way as an employee? What do you believe is interfering with your ability to perform. Gosh what a great question to ask a performer because they'll know. They'll be able to tell you. They may think that their reason is really valid but the truth is their reason is mostly just because they believe it. [LAUGH] And so now we have to help them recognize and kind of back up the model like, okay well if you want to improve your result, what do you have to do to get there? What do you have to be feeling to take that action? What do you have to be thinking to feel that way? And then how can we start to drive your results in a new direction? So working with this high performer and really focusing on mindset coaching. Really asking reflective questions for them to think. Think about what do you believe was influencing your performance? What would you like to do moving forward? How will you change the results that you're getting? What can you be thinking about your job and your work that's different than what you were thinking about before when you weren't getting good results? We really need high performers in this case to recognize that their performance is their responsibility. You're going to help them, you're going to help them think it through, really look at those roadblocks. Think about some of those questions I talked about in the coach's toolkit. Right, like the so what question, or using the whys as a problem solver to help them recognize that there's probably some barriers that they're putting up in front of themselves related to performance that are unnecessary. And that they can remove and move forward. And then there may be some new changes in the organization like a new market, or a new customer, or a new process that isn't going to go away. So the more resistant we become to whatever that change is, the less likely we are to perform and find a solution. So when we resist what is we essentially impact our own performance, and introducing that concept to a performer can be very powerful because they can recognize that they can find solutions instead of just focus on their problems. So we want to invest in our high performers. We don't want to just dismiss low performance. We don't want to let it get out of hand. If its one month, two months, three months, we don't want to get too far outside of this, so that someone starts slipping in performance and then it's hard to pull them back in. So you've gotta be paying attention and really be engaged with this employee, so that you can help them write their performance as quickly as possible. So a couple of elements to talk about here in our summary. When someone who's been a top performer is now not a top performer, there's usually a good reason why their performance has dropped. We want to make sure we're really thoughtful about that. Let's evaluate, have there been some changes in the organization? In the process that they're working on? Their market? There customer, there management structure, there peers, or even in there personal life. What could be influencing their performance and what could be influencing their mindset their thinking, right. Mindset coaching is going to be really, really important and we want to help employees really think about and connect. How their thoughts are impacting their results. We also want to make sure that we're always holding employees accountable, to their own performance. So ultimately performance is their responsibility. But as their coach, I think there's a lot of value of you spending time, to help them really think through what might be influencing their outcomes. And lastly, as a manager we don't want to let this get out of control. Don't hide from a top performer who's not performing. Don't dismiss it too quickly. We want to make sure we get involved and address it, as quickly as we can, so the performance doesn't slip for too long.
