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Introduction

Much of the information in this book has been presented to thousands of managers in my seminar called "Coaching for Improved Performance." The reason for the overwhelming popularity of this seminar is perhaps explained in one manager's comments, "I have been going to management seminars for years, and this is the first time anyone has ever told me how to do specific things to solve my people management problems." This book is the result of managers' requests for more information about Coaching.

It is not the objective of the book to help managers make people happier in their work, to make managers more popular, or to raise humanity to some higher level of existence in life, although these things may occur as tangential benefits from the effective use of the coaching process. The coaching process is a technique that helps managers more successfully bring about performance achievements in business that relate directly to the survival of that business. The single purpose of this book is to help managers do better what they get paid to do, to improve their subordinates' performances, quantitatively and qualitatively, through specific, face-to-face techniques called coaching. If you apply these techniques, you will be able to modify problems with subordinates, and you will be able to change their behavior.

The book is intended to perform two separate functions. The first deals with certain specific beliefs managers have about their subordinate workers, about themselves as bosses, and about the seemingly undefinable process called management. Some managers fail in their efforts to solve people-performance problems by not doing the right

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things and, frequently, by doing the wrong things, because of what they wrongly believe about their subordinates, themselves, and the work relationship. For example, the president of a food processing company makes the following statement and practices it, "If I have a man who is not doing a good job, I give him a big raise. If he doesn't rise to it and get better, I fire him." Therefore, the first function of this book is to change your thinking about certain key beliefs relative to workers, bosses, and management.

The second function of this book deals with the techniques you can use as a manager to solve people-performance problems. As experience shows, even those managers who believe the right things don't know what to do about them. One of the primary reasons for this is that the management literature offers abundant theories of good management but lacks enough specific techniques. Therefore, this book will present specific techniques, to be used when you are faced with specific problems, and will tell you how to use them.

It is a natural tendency for most readers, especially experienced managers, to read only those sections of a book that appear exciting from the contents. It may seem logical to go directly to the conclusions without wasting time on the fancy explanations, and it does save time, but frequently it is as unrewarding as hearing only the punch Une of a good joke.

I suggest you read the whole book from beginning to end; otherwise it will not perform its function for you. Quite simply, if you do not beUeve the things in the beginning, you will not do the things at the end, because they will not make sense to you. Conversely, merely believing the right things is not enough; you must do the right things to be successful.

Ferdinand F. Fournies