If you’re engaged with an executive coaching company, then both the business and the individuals within it should be noticing change. Executive coaching needs to be more than just a “nice” experience. It should be delivering a return on investment, where everyone is benefitting.
If you think you could be getting more from executive coaching, but you’re not quite sure where to start, here are the top 3 things you should be looking for from your executive coaching company.
1. Human First Coach Matching
One of the common challenges we find people talk about a lot is that leaders aren’t always matched with the perfect coach.
Very often, coachees are matched through a technical algorithm. While this is fine to a certain extent, it does leave out many of the nuances that just aren’t possible without human intervention.
Those leaders who are matched through personal understanding tend to find they get more out of the coaching experience. At The Leadership Coaches, we insist on spending time with the leaders first so that we can get to know them. Then we personally select two potential coaches that could be the right fit based on numerous different factors.
But even then, leaders are given the choice of who they’d prefer through chemistry calls. However perfect the coach might be on paper, if the chemistry isn’t right when they’re interacting with their coachee, things won’t run as smoothly as they could.
So don’t accept computers making the decisions.
2. Measure Success
Whatever way the coachees have been matched, when they have been, they are often then put onto a coaching programme. In most typical scenarios this is made up of five or six coaching sessions. The sessions will happen, the discussions will of course be confidential, and then the coachee will more often than not report that they’re happy with how it’s all gone.
But we’ve spoken to many HR or L&D Managers who have shared with us that while it’s great that the individual seems happy, they haven’t been able to identify any real changes within the business.
We don’t accept the argument that it’s hard to prove a return on investment for executive coaching. The whole point of doing it is to make positive changes, and these changes need to have impacted business objectives as well as individual ones.
The only real way to do this is to measure the coaching. And, at The Leadership Coaches, one of the ways we do this is through stakeholder discovery calls.
Stakeholder discovery calls are where we speak to a cross section of people that are managers, peers, direct reports, and sometimes even customers and peers in other departments.
We will ask them questions about the leader, querying such things as:
· What's this person like when they're operating at their absolute best?
· How do they shine?
· What about when they're operating at their worst?
· What are the challenges?
· What would you like to see different in this person?
When we’ve gathered the data, we then pull it all together while still maintaining the confidentiality of the people who have given it.
We will then look at themes. For example, we may pick up a theme where an individual is talking more than listening, and therefore isn’t engaging well with others. Or it could be that the team members are reluctant to speak their mind because of fear of criticism. There could be any number of things happening, and through this exercise we get to know the reality.
The coaching then enables the coach to provide that feedback in a structured manner. They know that it is genuine and authentic because they've gathered it. It enables the leader to get the feedback that they need, and it’s also unbiased as it’s come from a few reliable sources.
Most importantly of all, that leader has a starting point and a goal to work towards.
During the coaching, the aim is to revisit that process again. After a number of sessions, we’ll go back and ask how the leader is performing. It’s important to note that behavioural change takes around six to nine months. That means you probably want to give it around six months to start to see some performance changes.
Then, when you come to the end of the programme, you can measure the responses again, to tangibly see how things have changed. This provides actual measurement and not just general feedback, and can be a gamechanger for a business.
All of this means that coaching programmes from The Leadership Coaches are typically made up of ten sessions, with far more thought and structure put into them. This is why our clients see an ROI.
3. Sponsored Coaching
Another measured approach is sponsored coaching, and this is a form of coaching that we highly recommend. It’s a tried and tested process that delivers real and visible results.
Sponsored coaching is where the individual would start by working with their sponsor. That's often a manager or a peer at their own level within the business who will be the eye in the business to hold them to account.
As part of this process, the coach and coachee will get feedback at the start from the sponsor. This could be to say something like they’ve noticed that they lack confidence in board meetings, or they’re not engaging with their team as much as they should be.
The individual then goes through their coaching following this feedback, but in a way that is completely psychologically safe. They can explore whatever it is that's going on for them, which could perhaps be imposter syndrome, as an example.
Again, at the midpoint of the coaching, the sponsor will come in and provide insight from the business.
Essentially, sponsored coaching allows an individual to be completely open, honest and get the progress they need, which isn't revealed to the business, but while somebody in the business is still holding them to account and can share what changes may be noticeable. Offering genuine measurement.
At The Leadership Coaches, we have our own coaching portal that supports the whole process. While the conversations are where the transitional changes take place, there are measures that come through from qualitative and quantitative sources.
Your Executive Coaching
Could you confidently say that all of these needs are being met with your executive coaching company?
If you’d be interested to see what sort of return on investment you could achieve from a more measured approach to coaching, please get in touch and we can explore with you how we could help.
