Why Coaching?
With countless development opportunities, not discounting E-learning and the new trend in gamification, why should a company implement coaching to develop employees? The answer is simultaneously multidimensional and simple: Coaching works. Coaching is powerful. Companies that employ coaching as a part of their development arsenal are more successful. What makes coaching so powerful? It is a catalyst for change. It helps people to manage change in their lives. It helps an individual identify the elements of their life or working life that need to change and facilitates the development of an action plan to help them to achieve the goals they set for themselves. Ultimately, coaching has been proven to empower leaders, challenge new thinking, boost performance and enhance engagement.
Here are some statistics: 77% of respondents at a Fortune 500 company indicated that coaching had a significant impact on at least one of nine business measures (Source: Executive Briefing: Case Study on the ROI of Executive Coaching, Merrill C. Anderson, Ph.D., MetrixGlobal, LLC)
Executive Coaching produced a 788% ROI for a Fortune 500 company. (Source: Executive Briefing: Case Study on the ROI of Executive Coaching, Merrill C. Anderson, Ph.D., MetrixGlobal, LLC). 86% of organisations saw an ROI on their Coaching engagements. 99% of people who receive coaching are satisfied and 96% would recommend coaching to others (Source: International Coaching Federation (ICF).
If you’re still not convinced that Coaching can help to develop and empower employees and leaders, boost performance and enhance engagement, think about this:
Coaching is Cool:
Individuals who have coaching as part of their CV demonstrate an eagerness to learn and grow and a willingness to put the work in to make that happen. Great companies recruit leaders with resilience and flexibility and if you’ve been coached, it’s more likely that you have these skills or are at the very least, working on improving them. The very nature of coaching is developmental, illustrating a desire to want to grow and improve yourself. In essence, if you have been coached, you are more marketable.
Coaching Enables Leadership Effectiveness:
In a study measuring leadership effectiveness, Thach (2002) found that executives who received six months of coaching increased their effectiveness by 55% when rated by their peers in a 360” feedback survey (source: positive psychology.com). Coaching helps leaders identify their blind spots, decide on a solution and create actions that move them forward.
Coaching Increases Self -Awareness:
In an experiment comparing a control group to an experimental group of managers who received coaching, the coached managers reported significantly higher levels of self- awareness and being aware of their strengths and weaknesses (Leonard-Cross 2010).
Considering that the nature of coaching is self-reflection, it is not surprising that coaching encourages an increase in self-awareness. When we are asked to consider what is currently happening and what needs to change, it begs the question: what can I do better and how? The focus of getting from point A to point Be is simply: “me”. I am the only one who is going to instigate the changes needed in my life to move me from one point to the other. This forces me to consider what is working and what is not. With a more accurate view of ourselves and better clarity on what we want, we are more likely to make the jump to improve. Coaching is a great tool to help us to reflect and improve our self-awareness.
Developing a Coaching Culture is Developing a Culture of Success:
Companies that focus on developing a coaching culture are ultimately creating a culture of self-improvement and success. Coaching lays the foundation for positive culture change and a move towards a culture of learning and growth. Those who have successfully integrated coaching into their culture, experience revitalized energy in the workplace, a reduction in conflict, better goal setting and enhanced interpersonal skills. Coaching is a means of conversing with your employees in a way that maximizes their potential and empowers problem solving. Driving a coaching culture is akin to driving success.
Coaching Has a Domino Effect:
An interesting phenomenon which I have noticed is that once a coaching program launches, through word of mouth, others get to hear of the personal impact it can have, and they too, want to be coached. The success and feel good factors of coaching mean that it becomes an initiative which is self-promoting, creating a positive domino effect. A company that has reached the point where internal coaches are being trained and deployed, has a unique opportunity to use the program to launch other strategic initiatives and to engage leaders at a strategic level.
Coaching Can be a Tool for Strategy Execution:
In-house coaches can help to create culture change through their coaching endeavors by introducing aspects of corporate change initiatives and ensuring that personal goals set, are aligned to those initiatives. Coaching can also be used on an executive level to ensure that company strategy is being executed by ensuring that work place goals set by executives, are aligned with company strategy. Coaching can affect the pace and efficacy of that all too crucial execution stage of company strategy.
Coaching is a Unique Tool for Personal Growth:
As humans, our behavior is affected by many unseen characteristics such as upbringing, personality, culture, beliefs and values etc. What makes coaching so powerful is that it is a vehicle for unpacking the layers and exposing the unseen elements of our motivators and drivers of behavior, bringing lasting change. Coaching goes where other initiatives do not. It has the unique ability to “cut to the chase” and expose our behavior in a confidential and safe setting. The tendency of coaching to make us really think about our behavior, is where the power lies. What makes me behave in this way and what can I do to change it? Which of my behaviors are working for me and which are not? What actions can I put into place to help me change my behavior for the better?
There is no Time Like the Present:
If you have not yet implemented coaching in your company, there is no time like the present to leverage this incredible tool to help drive positive behavior, engage leaders, and create a culture of success. If you would like to implement coaching in your company, I am a qualified coach and team coach and can help. Contact me HERE.
