Performance Management: Putting Research into Action

Performance Management vs. Developmental Coaching

Although the fundamentals of coaching are similar regardless of purpose, it may help to highlight the differences in conversations where coaching is primarily forward-looking and developmental in nature from those in which the person being coached is underperforming or not meeting important expectations. The GAPS Grid (see Table 4.1; Peterson, 2006), a framework for coaching conversations that addresses Insight and Motivation, can be used to illustrate some of the key differences:

Goals and Values refers to what motivates the person’s behavior at work, which is essential to understanding their efforts to perform and to develop themselves. Each person’s most powerful motivations are unique, ...