Giving Coaching Feedback Using The PAF Technique (2024)

If you are a manager, coach, or mentor who is responsible or accountable for someone else’s performance or development then this course will enable you to excel in that role. You will gain the confidence and ability to communicate your honest beliefs about how someone is “doing” though impactful conversations that are meaningful and effective.

In-Depth and Practical with a Focus on “Tough” Feedback Situations

The course focuses on how to coach and give feedback to employees within the context of performance management. So, if you are looking to improve how you communicate this information both informally and formally, and want to learn simple, practical “how to” skills that you can apply immediately to see immediate results, then this in-depth and detailed treatment of the subject that teaches ONLY through examples, is for you.

While the course shows you a straightforward way (The PAF Technique) to talk about any kind of performance and behaviour, and and how to tie it to development, it focuses on coaching employees for improved performance. Therefore, most of the course shows you how to successfully bring up and communicate the most difficult and sensitive negative information simply because this is where people struggle the most and therefore want the most help.

If you have ever had to bring up and discuss problematic performance or behaviour, especially when it involves subjective issues, then you know it is notoriously hard to do. It can be daunting, anxiety provoking, and fraught with danger. For example, if you honestly believe that someone is “too defensive” and want to resolve the negative impacts and consequences that it is having for all concerned, then the stress and fear lies in knowing you will likely have to have an uncomfortable conversation with decidedly risky outcomes. What if the employee has some kind of negative reaction? What if you can’t resolve the situation, or even make it worse in some way?

Replace any Fear and Anxiety with Knowledge, Skills, and Confidence

It’s no wonder then that simply avoiding the whole situation can seem like a very attractive option. However, kicking the can down the road comes with its own set of potential negative ramifications. The employee is denied the opportunity to correct something that may be holding them back, everyone has to continue to live with the situation, and you could be perceived as being a poor manager, coach, or mentor for not dealing with it.

So whether you’re new to the role of managing employee performance and development or a seasoned pro, this course will provide you with a whole new perspective about what effective performance-related feedback conversations should look like. More importantly, it will also give you the necessary expertise to fulfil your critical responsibility to hold them. You won’t feel that you have to avoid dealing with problematic issues or worry about tackling them head on. Instead you’ll replace any anxiety with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to create a win-win-win outcome. You become more accomplished in your role, employees overcome any barriers to success, and the organization gets better performance,

How this Course Overcomes the Root Cause of the Problem with Giving Tough Feedback

PAF stands for Performance, Analysis, and Feedback. The straightforward 3-step technique works because it targets and overcomes the three difficulties that make up the root cause of the problem that people encounter when doing any kind of management coaching that involves giving tough feedback. Namely, how do you:

1. Justify and prove that your beliefs, conclusions, and opinions about an employee’s performance and potential are correct and free from bias.

2. Find exactly the right words to convey the information in a totally honest yet totally kind way that avoids negative reactions and achieves desired outcomes.

3. Manage the discussion to deal effectively with anything the employee says or does while ensuring he or she leaves feeling good about you and your relationship.

If you’ve struggled with these same issues, even if you have taken previous training on the topic of “how to coach employees for improved performance” or “how to give feedback” in the past, then PAF will open your eyes concerning what to do differently in order to get different results.

The technique will then teach you what this entails. You will learn how to know exactly WHAT to say, and exactly HOW to say it – and we mean the EXACT words – in a comfortable way that achieves desired outcomes. That is, in a way the employee can understand, accept as valid, and act upon while and keeping your relationship intact.

CONTENT AND OVERVIEW

Using only examples, the course guides you step-by-step through the nitty gritty details – because the devil is always in the details!

The Root Cause of the Problem With Giving Tough Feedback – and How PAF Overcomes It

This section uses a detailed example to illustrate how the three parts of the root cause of the problem with addressing tough performance or behaviour issues manifest themselves when giving coaching feedback to improve performance. It then describes how PAF’s three steps are able to overcome each one.

MODULE 1: PAF Corrective Feedback For Employees

This module continues with the same example to teach you the PAF Technique itself. The three instructional videos take about 20 minutes each. These are followed by lots of examples that show how it has been used in real-life. At the end there are two comprehensive practice exercises.

• PAF Step 1 ANALYSIS: How to Validate Your Performance Narrative

This module shows you how to validate your Performance Narrative (i.e. what you “know and believe to be true in your head” about the problem performance issue). You will learn how to analyze your subjective thoughts, conclusions and opinions to pinpoint exactly what the problem is and exactly what you want to accomplish by addressing it. The specific PROCESS to describe and structure that information results in the PAF performance Story. So, at the end of this step, you can prove to yourself and others that your feedback will be clear, verifiably true, and free from bias.

• PAF Step 2 FEEDBACK: How to Convey the Information Effectively

This module continues with the example to show you the FORMULA to translate the validated but still negative information from the PAF Performance Story from Step 1 into a short positive message called the 30-Second Sound Byte that you can deliver in under a minute. This final feedback contains the EXACT words you need to say, and EXACTLY how to say them in a way that the employee can understand, accept as valid, and act upon while increasing their motivation and keeping your relationship intact.

• PAF Step 3 DISCUSSION: How to Successfully Manage the Discussion

This module continues with the example in Step 1 and 2 to show you how to deliver the 30-Second Sound Byte and then discuss thefeedback in a way that will keep you on track. This means that, regardless of what the employee says and does, in the end you will be able to achieve your objective for the discussion – which is that he or she will will know exactly what changes are required and agree to make them. The GUIDELINES will help you to deal effectively with any potential issues that could derail the discussion by showing you know exactly what to do or say if, for example, the employee doesn’t accept the feedback without a challenge, really pushes back, has an excuse, or if the issue is really out of their control. Furthermore, the way you will learn to do this will help you to achieve other important outcomes – such as ensuring the employee keeps face and feels good, keeping your relationship intact, and increasing the probability that he or she leaves with an increased sense of motivation and engagement.

• Real Life Examples:

See 16 examples that illustrate how PAF corrective feedback has been applied in real-life.

• Comprehensive Practice Exercises:

Use a Template and Job Aid to try applying PAF for yourself in two separate situations. Then compare your answer to ours. Watch as we complete the same exercises and show you how our PAF feedback sounds in a role play situation.

MODULE 2: PAF Corrective Feedback for Non-Reports

This module shows you how to tweak the PAF technique slightly to talk to people who don’t report to you, your boss or peers for example, in a politically correct way that ensures they will want to listen to what you have to say and increase the chance you will achieve your desired objective – without it backfiring!

MODULE 3: PAF Reinforcing Feedback to Anyone

While the focus of the course is on giving difficult information simply because this is what most managers find the hardest to do, it doesn’t mean that it is more important from a managing, coaching, or mentoring perspective. Therefore, at the end of this module you will know how to use PAF to give superior reinforcing feedback that really makes the point and encourages even more desired performance.

OPTIONAL MODULE: How and Why PAF is Different from Typical Feedback Approaches

This Optional Module will be helpful if you have already experienced poor outcomes when attempting to give difficult or sensitive negative feedback and you want to understand and recognize what you may, or may not have done, that contributed to that result. If you’re new to “giving feedback” then it will clearly show you what NOT to do so that you can avoid falling into the same trap.

As context for this Module:

We started teaching PAF in a classroom setting in 2004, long before we created this online version of the course. 

At the beginning of that workshop we videotaped participants giving corrective coaching feedback for a tough performance issue to create a baseline and assess how they normally approached such situations. It was clear that almost all of them were relying on a variation of the typical approach to giving feedback. This was the case regardless of their degree of managerial experience, level in the organization, or whether they had taken previous training about how to do it. (When asked, they seemed to know about this typical approach either through experience, observation, or previous learning.)

However, while watching these videos it became clear to them that, despite their best efforts and good intentions, what they were doing not only inadvertently caused them to fail to effectively communicate the message, but often ended up making the situation even worse.

We explained that this was NOT their fault. The typical approach only works in theory for the most challenging conversations because, as was very evident in practice, it ends up causing the pitfalls that resulted in their negative experiences. This meant that the poor outcomes they experienced were attributable more to the approach itself rather than to an incorrect application of it by the individual concerned. This was a huge relief to our participants as these managers were invariably blaming themselves for the failure.

What the Module contains:

You will see an explanation of what this typical feedback approach would theoretically look and sound like for the same example that we used to teach PAF in Module 1. It then explains WHY it works in theory (and therefore perhaps why it is so ubiquitous) but falls short when applied to giving more difficult subjective feedback about difficult or sensitive issues.

This is followed by six short examples of some of those videos that are representative of the many from that classroom baseline exercise. If you choose to watch them you will see the main variations of the typical approach that those participants took to address that situation. Since these videos show the same case in PAF Practice Exercise #1 you can see for yourself how that approach inadvertently led them into the pitfalls that they were actively trying to avoid and experience an “apples to apples” comparison with PAF for the same situation.

At the end of this course you will:

1. Have gained a new insight into an old topic.

2. Have the necessary knowledge, skills, and confidence to use PAF to successfully communicate ALL your thoughts and opinions about how an employee is “doing” (but especially the tough stuff) in both informal or formal performance and development conversations.

3. Be inspired to apply what you have learned in a win-win-win way that gets better results and outcomes for yourself, your employees, and the organization, which means you can:

• Fulfil your critical responsibility to manage, develop, and motivate employees and reap the rewards from being seen as excelling in your ability to get the best from people and help them succeed.

• Ensure that employees know exactly “how they are doing”. They are clear about how to overcome any barriers to success, and how to achieve their potential.

• Help the organization gets better results from its performance management and development initiatives.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How long do I have access to the course materials?

You can view and review the lecture materials indefinitely, like an on-demand channel.

Can I take my courses with me wherever I go?

Definitely! If you have an internet connection, courses on Udemy are available on any device at any time. If you don’t have an internet connection, some instructors also let their students download course lectures. That’s up to the instructor though, so make sure you get on their good side!