Executive Coaching: A Study of Best Practices

A recurring theme throughout corporate boardrooms around the world is: "do we have the right talent to succeed." Corporations everywhere view leadership as among the top issues affecting their organizations both today and in the future. In spite of these concerns, there is still lingering dissatisfaction with executive leadership development programs.

In the midst of these dynamics, executive coaching has risen in popularity. The American Management Association and the Institute for Corporate Productivity define coaching as "a short-to-medium relationship between a manager or senior leader and an internal or external consultant with the purpose of improving work performance." According to the AMA, hopeful companies see coaching as a vehicle to provide custom-delivered development opportunities to both current and aspiring leaders.

Today, more and more global companies are using the discipline of coaching as an integral component in their executive leadership development programs. As coaching continues to be utilized to enhance the careers and job needs of senior managers, there is rising interest in best practices. To gain a better understanding of successful practices in coaching, the AMA commissioned the Institute for Corporate Productivity to conduct a global study of coaching, using a sample of organizations in North America, Europe, and the Middle East. Over 1000 executives and managers were surveyed.

Here are the major published findings from the AMA/Institute for Corporate Productivity study:

1. Coaching is used by more than half of today's companies:
   In the North American sample, 52% report having such programs in place, and, in the international sample, the proportion is 55%.


2. Coaching continues to gain in popularity:
   Among respondents who say their organizations don't yet have coaching programs, a sizable proportion (37% in the North American sample and 56% in the international sample) say such programs will be implemented in the future.


3. Coaching is associated with higher performance:
   Respondents from organizations that use coaching report two kinds of advantages: They're more likely to report that their organizations have higher levels of success in the area of coaching; and they're more likely to say that their organizations are performing well in the market, as determined by self-reports in the combined areas of revenue growth, market share, profitability, and customer satisfaction.


4. Coaching is primarily aimed at boosting individual performance:
   The desire to improve individual "performance/productivity" is the most widely cited purpose of coaching.


5. Clarity of purpose counts:
   The more a company has a clear reason for using a coach, the more likely that its coaching process will be viewed as successful.


6. Evaluating coaching's performance may help boost success rates:
   The more frequently respondents reported using a measurement method, the more likely they were to report success in their coaching programs.


7. It pays to interview:
   Having an interview with the prospective coach has the strongest relationship with reporting a successful coaching program.


8. It pays to match the right coach with the right client:
   Matching people according to expertise and personality seems to be the best strategy.


9. External training seems to work best:
   Externally based methods of providing training on coaching are most strongly correlated with overall coaching success, though they are less often used.


10. Coaching's international future looks bright:
    Compared with the North American sample, organizations in the international group have not had coaching programs in place for as long, but more in this group plan to implement coaching programs in the future.


11. Peer coaching needs to become more effective:
    Although a little over half of responding organizations use peer coaching, only about a third of respondents who use it consider it to be very effective or extremely effective.

Additional information on this topic and access to the complete AMA/Institute for Corporate Productivity study is publicly available at www.amanet.org.

Source: Information is copyright of the American Management Association

Turning Managers into Coaches

Executives are seeing the benefits of coaching for themselves and are now assessing if it could have the same impact on their employees. Some companies are now looking to increase managers' coaching skills to achieve better results and boost employee performance. The end game is providing employees more of the mentoring, resources, and inspiration they need to be successful, and ultimately better contribute to the achievement of organizational-wide goals.

David Rock, an international coaching expert and CEO of Results Coaching Systems, offers the following advice and alternatives for organizations looking to institute a workplace coaching program:

• Develop a team of formal internal coaches who coach as part of their role. This is being tried by organizations that have had external coaches, have seen the benefits, and want to bring the whole coaching culture into their organization.


• Train managers in coaching skills, without appointing them as formal coaches. One of the down sides to this alternative is how easy it is for people to fall back into old habits if they are not formally required to coach as part of their role.


• A large percentage of the whole organization could be trained in the basic coaching skills and techniques through incorporating coaching frameworks into training programs. For example, instead of training new employees in your systems for three days, use a shorter training program instead, followed by an on-going coaching program delivered by an internal team.

Rock notes that all of these options for turning your managers into coaches have different costs and benefits. He emphasizes that the best approach is likely a combination of all three approaches, ideally using similar coaching methodologies and frameworks.

Sources: HR Monthly, WorkplaceCoaching.com