Review Case Study 9-1, ‘Was Robert Eaton A Good Coach?’ On Pages 256 Of The Tex

Summary Points

_ Managers must possess several important skills to manage the performance of their employees effectively. Managers need to serve as coaches, to observe and document performance accurately, to give both positive and negative feedback, and to conduct performance review meetings.

_ Coaching is an ongoing process in which the manager directs, motivates, and rewards employee behavior. Coaching includes several key functions such as giving advice about what is expected about performance and how to perform well, giving employees guidance so employees know how to improve their performance, providing employees with support without being controlling, and enhancing employees’ confidence and competence. Coaching must be based on a helping and trusting relationship. This is particularly important when the supervisor and the subordinate do not share similar cultural backgrounds.

_ Managers need to engage in a complex set of behaviors to perform the various coaching functions. These include the following: establish developmental objectives, communicate effectively, motivate employees, document performance, give feedback, diagnose performance problems, and develop employees.

_ Managers’ personalities and behavioral preferences determine their coaching style. Some managers prefer to be drivers and just tell employees what to do. Others prefer to be persuaders and try to sell what they want the employees to do. Yet others adopt an amiable style in which feelings take precedence and urge the employee to do what feels right or what the employee feels is the right way to do things. Finally, others prefer to be analyzers and have a tendency to follow rules and procedures in recommending how to perform. None of these four styles is necessarily better than the others. The best coaches are able to change their styles and adapt to the needs of the employees.

_ The coaching process is ongoing and cyclical, and it includes the following five components: (1) setting developmental goals, (2) identifying the resources and strategies needed to achieve the developmental goals (e.g., securing resources that will allow employees to engage in activities to achieve their developmental goals), (3) implementing strategies (e.g., enrolling the employee in an online course), (4) observing and documenting developmental behaviors (e.g., checking on the progress of the employee toward the attainment of his developmental goals), and (5) giving feedback (e.g., providing information to the employee that will help him adjust his current developmental goals and guide his future goals).

_ Observing and documenting performance in general and performance regarding developmental goals in particular are not as easy as it may seem. Time constraints can play a role when managers are too busy to gather performance information. Situational constraints may prevent managers from observing the employee directly. Finally, activity constraints may be a factor; when developmental activities are unstructured, such as reading a book, the manager may have to wait until the activity is completed to assess whether any new skills and knowledge have been acquired.

_ Observation and documentation of performance can be improved in several ways. These issues, which were described in detail in Chapter 7, include implementing a good communication plan that managers accept and establishing training programs that help managers minimize rater errors (i.e., rater error training); share notions of what it means to complete developmental activities successfully (i.e., frame-of-reference training); observe performance more accurately (i.e., behavioral observation training); and become more confident about managing employee performance (i.e., self-leadership training).

_ Documenting an employee’s progress toward achieving developmental goals and improving performance in general has several important benefits. These include the reduction of the manager’s cognitive load, the enhancement of trust between the employee and the manager, the collection of important input to be used in planning developmental activities in the future, and the development of a good line of defense in case of litigation.

_ For documentation to be most useful, it must be specific, use adjectives and adverbs sparingly, balance positives with negatives, focus on job-related information, be comprehensive, be standardized across employees, and be stated in behavioral terms.

_ Feedback about performance in general and about developmental activities in particular serves several important purposes. These include building employee confidence, developing employee competence, and enhancing employee involvement with the unit and the organization as a whole.

_ The mere presence of feedback does not mean that there will be positive effects on future performance. For feedback to be most useful, it must be timely, frequent, specific, verifiable, consistent over time and across employees, given in private, and tied closely to consequences (e.g., rewards); address description first and evaluation second; discuss performance in terms of a continuum and not in terms of dichotomies (i.e., more and less and not all or nothing); address patterns of behavior and not isolated events; include a statement that the manager has confidence in the employee; and include the active participation of the employee in generating ideas about how to improve performance in the future.

_ In general, managers do not feel comfortable about giving negative feedback. They may fear that employees will react negatively because they themselves have been given negative feedback in the past in a way that was not helpful and do not want to put their employees in the same situation, because they don’t like playing god, or because they think they need to collect an onerous amount of information and evidence before giving negative feedback. When negative feedback is warranted, however, and managers refuse to give it, poor performers may get the message that their performance is not that bad. Eventually, the situation may escalate to the point that the manager has no choice but to give negative feedback; the situation then becomes punitive, and feedback is not likely to be useful. For negative feedback to be useful, it must be given early when the performance problem is still manageable.

_ Supervisors play the paradoxical roles of judge and coach at the same time. These roles are assumed during the performance review meetings, which can include as many as six separate formal meetings: system inauguration, self-appraisal, classical performance review, merit/salary review, developmental plan, and objective setting. In most organizations, these meetings are merged into one or two meetings. It is most effective to separate the meetings so that employees can focus on one issue at a time (e.g., supervisor’s view on the employee’s performance, rewards allocation, developmental plan).

_ In some cases, an employee may be unwilling or unable to overcome performance problems. When that happens, there is a need to implement a formal disciplinary process including a verbal warning, followed by a written warning, and eventually, if needed, termination. When implementing a disciplinary process, supervisors must be aware of several pitfalls including the acceptance of poor performance, failing to get the message through, arguments that performance standards are unfair or unrealistic, employee and supervisor emotional reactions, and the failure to consult with HR.

_ The termination meeting creates important challenges and is extremely unpleasant for both the employee and supervisor. For termination meetings to be more effective and less painful, supervisors must (1) be respectful, (2) get right to the point, (3) wish the employee well, (4) send the employee to HR (or offer information based on the advice of outside counsel), (5) have the employee leave immediately, and (6) conduct the termination meeting at the end of the day. Overall, all employees deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, even those who are being terminated.

_ When all the performance review meetings are merged into one, the components of such a meeting include the following: (1) explanation of the purpose of the meeting, (2) self-appraisal, (3) discussion of the supervisor’s performance ratings and rationale and resolution of discrepancies with self-appraisal, (4) developmental discussion, (5) employee summary, (6) rewards discussion, (7) setting up follow-up meeting, (8) approval and appeals process discussion, and (9) final recap.

_ In meeting with the supervisor to discuss performance issues, employees may become defensive. Defensiveness is indicated by a fight-or-flight response. The supervisor can minimize defensiveness by (1) establishing and maintaining rapport, (2) being empathetic, (3) observing verbal and nonverbal cues, (4) minimizing threats, and (5) encouraging employee participation.

_ When defensiveness becomes unavoidable, the employee’s attitude must be recognized and allowed expression. If the situation becomes intolerable, the meeting may be interrupted and rescheduled for a later time.

CASE STUDY 9-1 Was Robert Eaton a Good Coach?

Robert Eaton was CEO and chairman of Chrysler from 1993 to 1998, replacing Lee Iacocca who retired after serving in this capacity since 1978. Eaton then served as cochairman of the newly merged DaimlerChrysler organization from 1998 to 2000. With 362,100 employees, DaimlerChrysler achieved revenues of EUR 136.4 billion in 2003. DaimlerChrysler’s passenger car brands include Maybach, Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, and Smart. Commercial vehicle brands include Mercedes-Benz, Freightliner, Sterling, Western Star, and Setra.

From the beginning of his tenure as CEO, Eaton communicated with the people under him. He immediately shared his plans for the future with his top four executives and then took the advice of his colleague, Bob Lutz, to look around the company before making any hasty decisions concerning the state of affairs at Chrysler. Eaton and Lutz ascertained that Chrysler was employing the right staff and that they did not need to hire new people; they just had to lead them in a different manner, that is, in a more participative style.

Eaton listened to everyone in the organization, including executives, suppliers, and assembly-line workers, to determine how to help the company succeed. Eaton also encouraged the employees at Chrysler to talk with one another. The atmosphere of collaboration and open-door communication between Eaton and Lutz (the two men sat across the hall from one another and never closed their doors) permeated the entire organization. Eaton and Lutz’s walk-around management style indicated to employees that they were committed to and engaged in the organization. Furthermore, Eaton and Lutz held meetings with their executive team on a regular basis to exchange ideas and information from all areas of the organization.

Eaton even reorganized the manner in which Chrysler designed cars based on a study, previously disregarded by Iacocca, that indicated that Chrysler needed to be more flexible and its executives needed to be in constant communication with the product design team. One employee was quoted as saying, “Bob Eaton does not shoot the messenger when he hears something he doesn’t like or understand. He knows that not every idea is right. But Bob is off-the-wall himself…. He’ll say something, and we’ll tell him that it’s a crazy idea…. He may not change his mind in the end, but he’ll spend the time explaining to you what is behind his thought processes. Do you know what kind of confidence that inspires?” This type of open communication at the top proved extremely successful, as summed up by one designer: “It’s a system that recognizes talent early and rewards it, and that creates a sense of enthusiasm for your work, and a sense of mission.”

Another program that Eaton describes as empowering employees at Chrysler includes requiring all employees, including executives, to participate in the process of building a new vehicle. Eaton explains that this shows all of the employees in the plant that executives are concerned about the proper functioning of new cars, and it gives executives the opportunity to understand and solve problems at the factory level. Eaton states, “When we’re done with our discussions, these guys know where we want to go and how we want to get there, and they go back and put the action plans together to do that. This goes for every single thing we do.” He concludes, “Clearly at a company there has to be a shared vision, but we try to teach people to be a leader in their own area, to know where the company wants to go, to know how that affects their area, to benchmark the best in the world, and then set goals and programs to go after it. We also encourage people not only to go after the business plan objectives but to have stretch goals. And a stretch goal by definition is a fifty-percent increase …. If we go after fifty percent, something dramatic has to happen. You have to go outside of the box.”

Based on the above description, please evaluate Bob Eaton’s coaching skills using the accompanying table. If a certain coaching behavior or function is missing, please provide recommendations about what he could have done more effectively.

Major Functions

Present? (Y/N)

Comments/Recommendations

Give advice

Provide guidance

Give support

Give confidence

Promote greater competence

Key Behaviors

Present? (Y/N)

Comments/Recommendations

Establish development objectives

Communicate effectively

Motivate employees

Document performance

Give feedback

Diagnose performance problems

Develop employees

Source: Based on information provided by M. Puris, Comeback: How Seven Straight-Shooting CEOs Turned Around Troubled Companies (New York: Times Books, 1999), 80–118, specifically Chap. 4, “Robert Eaton and Robert Lutz; The Copilots.”

(Aguinis 253-257)

Aguinis, Herman. Performance Management, 3/e VitalSource ebook for Laureate Education. Pearson Learning Solutions, 06/2012. VitalBook file.

The citation provided is a guideline. Please check each citation for accuracy before use.

 

Do you need a similar assignment done for you from scratch? Order now!
Use Discount Code "Newclient" for a 15% Discount!