QUESTION: Choosing a Coaching Company OR Individual Coaches?
Dear Merry,
I am the director of Organizational Development and I report to the VP of HR. We re just getting ready to draft our proposal for a corporate-wide coaching program and make our request for funding. What are your thoughts on using one coaching company vs. using many independent coaches?
RESPONSE: There are Pros and Cons of Both
Dear Executive,
How exciting!
In my experience, coaching will be sure to produce a return on investment for your company if you consider the following suggestions.
1. Understand what the coaching program is specifically being designed to deliver. This is critical. I very often talk about HR and OD s imperative to align with the strategic mission of their executive team. Set clear goals at the beginning of the program so that you can measure yourself against these goals to demonstrate success.
- How will your program produce results that are in alignment with the strategic mission?
- Clarify the business results you are looking to achieve. What could the return on invest be for coaching?
- How will you measure success?
- Examples of coaching program goals and expected results:
-Women and people of diverse backgrounds are not well represented in your company s leadership succession plan. The goal of the coaching program is to prepare women and minorities for promotion. Success will be measured by improving the numbers of women and minorities in the leadership pipeline.
-Goal: Your Company is specifically looking to improve employee retention. Measure retention by department before coaching begins. Implement the coaching program and then re-measure retention periodically overtime.
2. How much time and resources does your organization have for Project Management?: You can choose many individual coaches or a coaching firm depending on how much time you want to invest in managing the project yourself. One of the benefits of choosing a coaching firm is that they will manage the project for you and provide trend reporting, 3rd party insights, and consolidated feedback on the status of all of the assignments.
3. If you choose to use a coaching company be sure you understand what is included in the project costs and understand their process:
- Be sure to understand exactly what you are entitled to as far as project management.
- Don t assume that they have a consistent coaching process and methodology. You will want to ask them directly.
- Keep in mind that consistency in coaching approach helps in driving leadership behaviors through the company. How will your coaching company support this? Will they use one coach for all assignments? If a small team is required how will they ensure a cohesive approach that can trickle through the ranks? It is important that the coaches use the same language and that they are measuring the same behaviors.
4. Reasons to choose independent coaches: There are many benefits to going with a coaching company. There are a few good reasons for considering independent coaches:
-You may have experience with some independent coaches who have done a phenomenal job for you already.
-These experienced independent coaches may have been coaching in your company for a long time and may understand your culture in ways that other coaches would not immediately.
If you choose to go with an independent coach, be sure you understand what would happen if after a few sessions the coachee does not feel comfortable with his/her coach. A coaching company would be able to provide a different coach. An individual coach may not be able to give you this flexibility. You may want to negotiate for this possibility if you are opting for an individual coach.
5. A few tips for selecting coaches regardless of whether they come through a coaching company or as individuals:
a. Check your coaches credentials. Executives like coaches with business experience in their market and/or coaches who have had similar responsibilities.
b. Pick coaches by their approach: Some coaches approach their work from a psychological point of view, and others from a business point of view. Choose a coach or company that matches the approach with which you are most comfortable.
6. Ask a lot of questions: Regardless of whether you choose a coaching company or individual coaches:
a. Understand the division of labor: What do you do and what does the coach do? For instance, who alerts the coachee they have been selected for coaching. Who will choose the coach? How does that happen?
b. What (if any) reporting do they provide?
c. What is the level of confidentiality?
d. Is coaching in person or by phone?
e. Will they be using your company s standard assessments OR their own?
f. If your organization has assessments and/or performance metrics it currently uses, will the coaches carry this language over into coaching so that the company s current leadership language is preserved and reinforced?
g. How will the effects of coaching be measured for each individual? The end results of coaching for each individual should be evaluated in a standard way.
My personal preference is for you to choose a coaching company rather than several independent coaches. There are pros and cons of both approaches. I feel that the benefits of getting status reporting, trends reporting, consistency in assessments and in measuring results, makes a coaching company a far more appealing option.
Best of luck with your proposal and request for funding!
Dare to Deliver!
Merry
Merry Marcus, President
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