What is QwikCoach?
QwikCoach is a new on-demand performance support tool designed to help people maximize their potential and ability to contribute to overall organizational success. It can be used to support any live coaching effort or used on it own.
Why is QwikCoach needed?
Because there continues to be a fundamental need to help people overcome roadblocks and challenges to getting a job done well. Today this need is greater than ever before because:
- Work is more complex.
- Workers are less engaged.
- People are separated by time and distance but must collaborate to achieve optimal results.
At the same time a growing number of workers are eager to have greater access to self-directed/on-demand development opportunities.
QwikCoach provides a new way to address all of these important concerns by combining great coaching advice with state of the art technology to provide a bold new way to offer coaching support to everyone.
Our company has a competency Model. Can QwikCoach be used to support and significantly enhance its use?
Yes! Many organizations spend considerable amounts of time, energy, and financial resources designing and building a model but falter when it comes to implementing it. Defining your organization’s competencies is important but helping people master competencies and put them into practice is a key differentiator when it comes to achieving organizational excellence. With our Competency Modeling solution you’ll have everything you’ll need to operationalize your organization’s Competency Model and maximize its beneficial impacts.
Does QwikCoach come with real coaching content?
Yes! QwikCoach comes loaded with coaching advice, guidance, and insights all designed to address real performance challenges – the types faced by most people every day – and reinforce any training or learning an organization has presented around three areas of core business competencies: People Smarts, Personal Savvy, and Business Sense. QwikCoach also contains over 1500 coaching questions to help users leverage content and promote additional discovery.
If we have a robust training function and use an in-house LMS or provide access to tools like Linkedin Learning why do we need an additional tool like QwikCoach?
Simple answer – because training — while important to staff development — is not sufficient for improved performance and sustained growth. Improved performance requires frequent and targeted feedback and high quality coaching.
Training is used to transfer knowledge. In the workplace a person needs a certain level of knowledge to perform, act, or complete a task or process. Training is provided through virtual or in-person instruction. Knowledge is transferred from “trainer” to student and the student then has a base of knowledge from which to take action. If performance is not at its best because people do not know HOW to do something, or understand the importance of knowing something, training is the “answer.” Linkedin Learning is an example of excellent training.
Coaching is used to improve performance not caused by lack of knowledge but related to issues like a lack of motivation, confusion over how to use knowledge correctly, or to help people gain awareness of how their behavior may be limiting their ability to successfully use their knowledge to excel. Coaching can be virtual or in person and can be used to coach oneself or others. If performance is not at its best because people do not have the right feedback, awareness, or clarity about what behaviors work in which situations, coaching is the “answer.” QwikCoach is an example of excellent coaching that has the potential to improve performance.
A person must be trained to KNOW what to do, but it is highly possible that someone can know what to do but still not perform up to his or her potential. Coaching support (versus training) must be provided to address performance obstacles and help people overcome them.
Here’s an example of how both training and coaching help an individual succeed:
Marcus has completed the company’s new e-learning module on Managing Projects that includes an extensive array of information and knowledge. He’s on a path to become a Project Leader but even with training Marcus is having some difficulty putting ideas, concepts, and processes — introduced during his e-learning sessions — into practice. Marcus also has access to an online coaching tool called QwikCoach that offers additional insights.
For example, QwikCoach provides:
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- Practical tips and techniques provide just the right advice to help Marcus see how he might alter behaviors to make interactions with project team members more effective.
- Suggestions on the importance of active listening fundamentally improved his ability to engage Sponsors and motivated him to do just that and get them involved with projects in more productive and meaningful ways.
- Practice Ideas helped Marcus implement new and better ways of managing projects immediately because he was able to understand the link between knowing and doing.
- On-board coaching questions to support self-discovery and introspection – activities that challenged the ability of Marcus to see new possibilities and use new confidence to improve his overall ability to lead projects.
- Assessments to help identify areas for improvement and target coaching support.
The coaching advice in QwikCoach “rings a bell” because it’s based on decades of successful coaching interactions and allows users to gain practical just-in-time coaching insights in convenient and easy ways and quickly overcome obstacles that otherwise would limit their ability to be successful. We’ve helped those we’ve coached surmount all types of challenging workplace issues and share all of this advice in QwikCoach so today’s users can benefits from all the help we given others.
Training provided Marcus a solid foundation.
Coaching provided him just-in-time performance support to turn knowledge into excellent performance.
Who wrote the content and designed the coaching approach used in QwikCoach?
All coaching content has been and will continue to be written by E-Coach Associates (ECA). E-Coach provides world-class content that has been tested widely by major US companies and at Columbia University. It is universally considered to be sound and consistent with commonly accepted and used concepts, practices, and advice in each content area. We also provide links to curated external resources that expand the scope of content to a wide variety of respected coaching expertise.
Who is the intended audience for QwikCoach?
Content is appropriate for people at all levels. For college grads, new hires, experienced workers, and seasoned mangers and leaders we also provide QwikStart tracks to jump-start their QwikCoach experience. People in leadership positions can use QwikCoach as an indispensable tool to help them coach others.
Can QwikCoach be used effectively to support leadership development?
Absolutely! Effective leaders need to be proficient in all of the areas supported by QwikCoach. In addition, the Leadership Module in QwikCoach will help leaders — at all levels – to develop and strengthen specific additional leadership skills needed to be effective.
Is training required to use QwikCoach?
Absolutely not! No training is needed because QwikCoach is simple and easy to use. A “Welcome” section describes various ways to use QwikCoach and provides a quick orientation for first-time users. Users can also click “Contact Us” whenever they need additional support.
Training for managers on how to coach others and use QwikCoach to support the coaching and development needs of others is available. We have found that Training Managers to Coach coupled with our QwikCoach Implementation Program can be of considerable help in launching the QwikCoach process in an organization.
The content in QwikCoach looks good – but why couldn’t we build our own online coaching tool using links to resources already on the internet. Why buy QwikCoach?
We shouldn’t be flip and say “hey good luck with that” but truly while it seems straightforward, it is actually enormously challenging to find (or create) easy to use and consistently styled and relevant coaching content — material written in a “coach’s voice” and from a coach’s perspective. Searching for content is easy but that’s just the start. Everything found (from millions of potential links) would have to be read and reviewed to determine if it provided the actual coaching insights needed. As a virtual coaching company we leverage our extensive coaching experience and decades of successful 1:1 coaching interactions to create and provide easy access to clear, consistent, and easy to apply coaching advice – all available in an easy to use virtual coaching tool.
QwikCoach is designed to be an on demand coach and reflects what we’ve helped those we’ve coached discover over decades of successful coaching interactions. Tips and techniques and practice ideas are provided so people can get specific coaching insights and direction to help them act in ways consistent with the advice provided.
QwikCoach currently provides coaching advice for 100 specific areas. To get a sense of what would be involved in recreating QwikCoach we would suggest you take just one topic – for example the need for effective “integration” when it comes to managing projects – and try to replicate what you’d find in QwikCoach. Document what a coach would help someone discover with respect to how to achieve integration and create a few practice ideas to help people transform their new found understanding into improved performance. We guarantee you will soon learn that reviewing, digesting, analyzing, and creating or choosing relevant content is enormously difficult, time consuming, and often frustrating.
Add to this effort required to create personal development tools, 360 assessment support, coaching guides, IDP support tools, links to curated resources and more and you’ll begin to see just how daunting developing a virtual coaching program in-house would be.
How is QwikCoach different?
Many coaching organizations present themselves as “virtual coaching” companies. By “virtual” they typically mean that they leverage technology to connect a coachee with a coach. Instead of using in-house or external coaches to provide coaching support in-person – these “virtual companies” provide live coaches who typically work “virtually” — by phone or via video conference.
The overall approach is to coach people as they have traditionally been coached with these differences:
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- A virtual coaching company may eliminate the need for a company to find and vet hundreds of coaches by providing easy ways to match people who need coaching with a qualified coach provided by the virtual coaching company.
- Once a “match” is made, coaching can be done using technology to support typical coaching conversations and interactions.
- Virtual companies may also provide technology assisted support by automating tasks like scheduling appointments, sending reminders, and providing follow-up notes or “nudges” to people they are coaching.
QwikCoach provides an on demand coaching experience in what is clearly a new, different, and innovative way. With QwikCoach you get coaching support designed to replicate what you would typically get working with a live coach — direction, insights, and advice to help people discover new, different, and better ways of working. Instead of getting coaching support working with a live coach – users receive coaching supporting as they interact with our online coaching tool – any time and from anywhere.
How can I (or my organization) see a demonstration of QwikCoach?
Just call us at 201-826-0228 or contact us to arrange for a virtual walk-through. Up to ten people may “attend” the meeting via their computers and phones.
How can my organization explore how QwikCoach can help my organization?
Yes. We’re happy to provide a free one-hour consultation to provide our expert advice. Just call us at 201-826-0228 or contact us to schedule a meeting.
Can we use QwikCoach before we purchase it?
Yes! You and up to four additional colleagues can have a free 2-week trial period. Just click here to learn more and sign-up.
What does QwikCoach cost?
QwikCoach starts at $259.00 per user but we offer a tiered-pricing structure with quantity discounts. Just call us at 201-826-0228 for details or reach out via Contact Us.