Performance Improvement at Work

I offer convenient, telephone-based coaching for working professionals who would like to improve their performance at work.  Typical client goals include:

- Improving performance after receiving a less-than desirable performance
  evaluation
- Becoming a top performer in order to avoid being laid off, or to secure a 
  promotion
- Acquiring top notch organizational skills
- Becoming proactive rather than reactive
__________________________________________________________

Performance seems very subjective.  One person's idea of good performance may not be another's.  It all seems rather "hit or miss".  In reality, it's not "hit or miss" at all.  Top performers generally get good ratings regardless of their manager. They can move from manager to manager, still getting similar top reviews.  Top performers can even change careers and companies and still find their way to the top of the performance heap. 

This is because skills, experience, and knowledge rarely differentiate a top performer from a mediocre performer or a low performer.  Skills, experience and knowledge may get a person hired, but they don't often keep them employed.  It's the "soft skills" that become the key differentiators.

Soft skills are behaviors like communication style, level of enthusiasm, etc.  These behaviors make the difference.  I work with clients to set performance goals and establish measurements of progress and success.  We work on the skills that are most likely to be the key differentiators.

Over the course of 30 years, I've worked for 8 large corporations, and completely changed careers 4 times.  While every corporation and every career is different, the qualities that seem to be valued in top performers always seem to be the same. They have very little to do with skills and knowledge......and everything to do with behavior. 

For the past 10 years, I've been working for a global corporation and I work closely with co-workers around the world (India, Manilla, Spain, Belgium, etc.).  The qualities that make top performers in those countries also come down to behaviors, for the most part.  Even in jobs that are mainly "left-brain" jobs.