Improve Your Coaching and Training Skills »

Patrick Forsyth runs Touchstone Training & Consultancy and specializes in marketing, sales and communications skills. Writing is a significant part of his own work portfolio. He is the author of more than fifty successful business books, including "Motivating Your Staff", "Successful Time Management" and "How to Write Reports and Proposals". He writes regularly for a number of business journals, and for Writing Magazine, and devises and writes training materials.

Staff development is a key management responsibility. Good people and good performance — and hence good development — are vital to success in a fast-changing and competitive world.

Improve Your Coaching and Training Skills contains practical guidelines to help managers develop their staff. Ideal for busy managers who don't have human resources support, it will help them boost staff effectiveness through coaching and training.

Key content includes: why development matters, on-the-job coaching, mentoring, developing a formal training method, conducting a training session, and assessing on-going effectiveness.

With tips on using exercises and role-playing in training, Improve Your Coaching and Training Skills is useful to those new to HR as well as hard-pressed managers.

Acknowledgements     ix
Preface     xi
Development: route to success     1
Staff attitudes     5
A development culture     7
The range of development methods     8
Development and management responsibility     11
The link with development     13
Creating a development plan     14
The development dimension     17
A cycle of improvement     20
The development task     21
The development gap     22
Evaluating throughout the year     24
The effect on the individual     28
Creating the right habit     29
On-the-job coaching     32
The beneficiaries of on-the-job coaching     33
Defining the development task     35
A systematic approach     36
Utilizing appropriate methods     42
Learning on the job     44
An economy of scale     45
Mentoring     47
Formal training: deciding content and method     51
Preparation - first steps     52
Materials     55
The materials you, the trainer, need     62
Participant material     70
Formal training: conducting a session     78
The way the group think of you     84
How to think of the group     85
The shape of the presentation     89
Formal training: the power of participation     100
First impressions last     101
Ice-breakers     104
Getting people involved     106
Using exercises     111
Making role-playing effective     112
Different people     122
Assessing ongoing effectiveness     127
Informal montoring     128
Testing training effectiveness     130
Course assessment     133
Annual job appraisal     137
The ultimate alternative     137
Afterword     140