Overview
One of the biggest challenges in developing this course has been what content to put in it as supporting materials for you to complete the missions. In the end, we decided that fewer was ultimately more useful. However, we decided to give you several other job aids that might be useful to you both within the course and outside the program. We haven't put any supporting podcasts with these, yet. But, if and when we do, you will have access to them-- even if that is three decades from now. Enjoy!
The Performance Intervention Checklist
Here is a tool we like to use for avoiding performance analysis and then to do analysis we have to do so. This approach is probably the most provocative of our approaches with the PDF framework.
Asking Better Questions
The following job aids explore the second DISCUSS Step. The ASKING QUESTIONS Job Aid provides a questioning structure that is very helpful when trying to get your employee talking.
The second aid provides a structure for scoping a project. In other words, what are the question categories that will help you better understand what is expected of you.
The Four-Step Influence Process
Sometimes you and another person just don't see eye-to-eye. This tool is an excellent process to follow when agreement is necessary and difficult to achieve.
DiSC
DISC is a dispositional tool. It is a model for identifying how an individual engages with her environment. I like it quite a bit as a short, quick, and dirty way to identify communication tactics when interacting with other humans. Although some industrial psychologists might disagree with me, I would say, DiSC is not a very valid tool for deeply understanding someone's motives, personality, or humanity. It is, however, a great superficial tool for beginning to relate to others.
Tips for Difficult Conversations
Thiagi developed a course that specifically focused on having difficult conversations. These were several of the tips from that program.
Managing Priorities at Different Levels
My friend Jim Rushing, from Electronic Arts came up with a wonderful way of summarizing generic care-abouts from people at different levels in an organization. What made this great was the user's ability to then adapt a message to the right audience. We have since shared these categories and care-abouts with executives, managers, and independent contributors at companies all over the world and they unanimously agree with the priorities identified.
Managing Expectations
Here is a quick and dirty reminder that you have to balance managing your employees' expectations for you as a coach/ leader and their experience with you as you coach/ lead them.