Category Archives: Coaching

Executive Coaching: what are the top success factors?

Coaching

International Coaching Week continues and today I take a look at the ‘Top Success Factors’ reported by DBM in their recent research study, conducted in partnership with the Human Capital Institute (full copy available at inquiries@dbm.com).

The first area they identify is ‘making the match’. The survey offers a number of factors including ensuring the coach has a sound coaching methodology, identifying coaches with business experience and industry/company knowledge, ensuring the right chemistry between coach and client (including organisational culture), managing the expectations of coach and client and allowing the interview to take place in person.

The second area is one they describe as ‘time and touch’: allowing 4 – 6 months for the client to develop new behaviours and emphasizing primarily face-to-face coaching with a blend of over-the-phone.

The third area is measurement (‘measure, measure, measure’), including assessing progress against initial objectives, soliciting an evaluation from the coach (or do they mean the ‘coachee’?) and seeking out anecdotal evidence of changes and the impact of changes.

I might have some questions about the detail. (In my own practice, for example, I have some senior clients with whom I speak for half an hour on a weekly basis and others I meet, face to face, on a fortnightly or monthly basis for 90 minutes. I can’t say that I have found face-to-face coaching to have been more successful than coaching by phone). At the same time, it seems to me that it helps to start coaching with a clear idea of what you want coaching to achieve, to match coaches and clients with care, to allow time for clients to make changes and to monitor results along the way.

Executive Coaching: tracking the financial impact

Coaching

This week, in celebration of International Coaching Week, I continue to reflect on the brief summary of a longer study of trends in Executive Coaching published by DBM in partnership with the Human Capital Institute (available via inquiries@dbm.com).

43% of respondents suggested that their organisations measure the financial impact of coaching, with 77% of those who measure financial impact suggesting the return on investment is at least equivalent to the investment and in some cases as high as 500%. The factors most often tracked were given as:

  • Output: 33%;
  • Quality: 23%;
  • Cost: 23%;
  • Turnover: 21%.

Reflecting on my own practice, I wonder what precisely is being measured here and over what time period. For coaching almost always offers the “double whammy” benefits of helping the person seeking coaching to handle situations more effectively during the coaching and leaving them more equipped to handle situations that take place long after coaching has finished. What would it take to measure the life-long ROI from coaching for a particular Executive?

Executive Coaching: when does it have the greatest impact?

Coaching

Looking again at the survey summary from which I quoted yesterday (by DBM in partnership with the Human Capital Institute), I was curious to see what the numbers suggest about when Executive Coaching has the greatest impact. They came out as follows:

  • Top place with 29% of respondents comes grooming high potential employees;
  • 28% of respondents cite helping capable executives achieve higher performance;
  • 8% of respondents cite enhancing team effectiveness;
  • 5% of respondents cite addressing short-term, targeted situations;
  • 5% of respondents cite onboarding newly hired or promoted executives; and
  • 3% cite guiding career decisions.

It’s stiking to me that the first two circumstances are cited by 57% of respondents as those in which Executive Coaching has the highest impact and that both are concerned with – if I can put it this way – taking good people and helping them to become even better.

It’s also interesting to notice that this does not correlate with the reasons organisations commission coaching, with addressing derailing behaviours coming joint first with helping capable executives achieve higher performance. Together, these account for 36% of responses. Only 8% of respondents cite onboarding newly hired and promoted executives as the main reason for commissioning coaching.

It would be easy to conclude that investing in coaching to help address derailing behaviors is of limited effectiveness. However the figures don’t seem to support this – 18% of respondents cite this as the number one reason for commissioning coaching and 22% of respondents cite it as the circumstance in which Executive Coaching has the greatest impact.

By contrast, it does seem that the benefits of using Executive Coaching to groom high potential employees are generally underestimated in the commissioning process, with 16% of respondents citing this as the number one reason for commissioning coaching compared to 29% citing this as the circumstance in which coaching has the greatest impact.

To request a copy of the white paper you can contact inquiries@dbm.com.

Trends in Executive Coaching

Coaching

As International Coaching Week begins I have been curious to receive a two-page summary of recent research by DBM, in partnership with the Human Capital Institute, into trends and emerging best practice in Executive Coaching.

What do they see as the key results from their research – their ‘results at-a-glance’?

  • The credibility and acceptance of coaching are high: 78% of respondents rate it as good or excellent;
  • Return on coaching investment is generally perceived as high – some estimate it as high as 500%;
  • Organisations are planning to increase their coaching investment in several targeted areas.

The survey is comprised of 472 responses from a cross-section of industries including HR Business Partners (32%), top Human Resources Executives (26%) and others in Organisational Development and Training and Development roles (42%).

I’ll be highlighting key findings throughout the week. In the meantime, you can request a copy of the full ‘white paper’ by contacting inquiries@dbm.com.

A special offer for International Coaching Week

Coaching

It is International Coaching week next week, when coaches around the world do something to raise the profile of coaching. This annual event recognises that coaching is still a young and growing profession and reflects the commitment of coaches working in a wide variety of fields to share their passion for coaching and what it can do for clients.

This year I have decided to invest time and energy into an initiative to raise money for the relief efforts in Haiti and in recent days I have been wondering what I can do to make International Coaching Week work for the people of Haiti. I decided to make a special offer to anyone who, during the week beginning 8th February 2010, confirms and pays for coaching with Learning for Life (Consulting). The coaching itself doesn’t need to take place during that week – just the booking and payment.

This offer is available both to corporate and to private clients: whilst most of my clients are corporate clients I do reserve Mondays to work with private clients by telephone. It also applies to anything you choose to book, from a two-hour session to take stock to a coaching programme for your organisation’s senior leadership team. And just in case this offer proves overwhelmingly popular, I shall of course be taking care not to confirm more coaching than I can possibly deliver: it is, as they say, “subject to availability”.

You get to choose from one of the following possibilities:

  • Perhaps you’d enjoy a discount to make it easy to book that coaching you’ve been thinking about for a while. If so, I’m offering a 10% discount on our normal coaching fees provided you book and pay during the week beginning 8th February, 2010;
  • Perhaps you’d like to pay the full fees and know that some of the money will go to Coaching for Haiti. If so, I will pay your 10% and add 10% of my own to Coaching for Haiti at www.JustGiving.com/CoachingforHaiti. That’s a full 20% of the full coaching fees to Coaching for Haiti. This is, again, provided you book and pay during the week beginning 8th February, 2010.

If you’d like to take advantage of this offer, please drop me a line at dorothy@learningforlifeconsulting.co.uk with ‘Special offer for International Coaching Week’ in the title. And please feel free to pass this offer on to anyone you know for whom this might be the right opportunity at the right time.

And if you’re also a coach and would like to make the same offer to your clients, please do.

Coaching for Haiti: what’s it about?

Coaching

In recent days I have been watching news of the terrible aftermath of the earthquakes in Haiti and I found myself wanting to do something that goes beyond putting my hand in my pocket – something that goes beyond anything I can do alone. From this thought the bare bones of an idea – which I am calling Coaching for Haiti – was born.

For a few days I have been watching the to’ing and fro’ing of my thoughts. What if I put the idea out there and nobody responds? What if the response is so overwhelming that it takes over my life? What if…? What if…? Today I have decided to share it and to let you know how you can, if you feel moved to, get involved. This way, I get to see if the idea does indeed have wings.

What’s the aim of Coaching for Haiti? The aim is to leverage the power coaching has to do good in the world in order to raise money for the men, women and children of Haiti. As the ICF’s International Coaching Week (7th to 14th February) approaches I am also aware of the potential for Coaching for Haiti to raise the profile of the coaching profession.

How might it work? I see Coaching for Haiti as a time-bound (one-year?) project that could capture the imagination of coaches, their clients, their friends, family and many other contacts: the essence of Coaching for Haiti is to leverage the support of many people who, like me, are moved by the plight of the people of Haiti and recognise the long road ahead. I imagine there may be a key sponsor that provides practical support (setting up a website, managing receiving funds for Haiti and passing them on, helping to raise interest in the media etc.). I also imagine many ways in which coaches might help to raise money using their coaching and other skills.

How can you contribute? If Coaching for Haiti is to take flight it will need a wide variety of contributions. These range from offering ideas, through helping to find a sponsor or sponsors right through to offering coaching in exchange for sponsorship for Coaching for Haiti. Right now, more than anything, Coaching for Haiti needs your ideas.

Over time, I imagine different ways that coaches might set about raising money. Some of them may be in exchange for coaching (writing to offer coaching to five people you’d really like to coach in exchange for a donation to Coaching for Haiti, for example). Some of them may involve coaches rather than coaching (going on a sponsored walk with members of your coaching supervision group, for example). Some of them may involve people other than coaches.

What can you do if you are interested to learn more? Coaching for Haiti is an opportunity to follow your heart and to make the contribution that suits you. At this stage, it is an idea that may or may not have wings. If you would like to belong to the community of people who are interested to support this idea, please sign up as a member of the Coaching for Haiti group on LinkedIn. This is a place where you can get involved and contribute ideas. You can also follow the progress of Coaching for Haiti at http://coachingforhaiti.blogspot.com/. I look forward to seeing you there.

Connecting – via the written word

Clients and testimonials, Coaching, , , ,

Recently I have wondered whether to put my name forward to join the published list of NVC (that’s nonviolent communication) trainers in the UK. I am not a certified trainer and don’t plan to become one – at least for now. And still, I’d enjoy having some coaching clients coming my way who are interested to develop a compassionate (‘nonviolent’) approach. Equally, since I work extensively with clients in corporations, I’d enjoy having someone – an HR Director, perhaps – contact me one day and ask to talk about the use of nonviolent communication in organisations.

What better way, I thought, than to seek the view of people who are already listed? So I put out an invitation to my colleagues to share their thoughts. One e-mail touched me deeply – I had the sense of being seen at my very best. It also reminded me of the power of social media, coming as it did from someone I have yet to meet and whose impressions of me come largely via the written word. With her kind permission, I share it with you.

This e-mail came to me from Jo McHale, whose business (at http://www.talking-truly.com/) focuses on converting conflict into connection. Here’s what she wrote:

Dear Dorothy

We haven’t met yet – and I trust we will before long – yet I feel moved to respond to your e-mail about joining the NVC-UK trainers list.

I have read your contributions to the NVC-UK group’s discussions. I have heard your voice on the conference call. I have read your response to a thread on the LinkedIn Coaching At Work group in which you commented on something Bill Tate wrote (Bill is my partner). I’ve also read your website/blog. And let’s not forget I first encountered you in the UKHRD Forum [now the Training Journal Daily Digest].

From each of these I have a sense of someone who is grounded, compassionate, passionate, thoughtful and wise. I find it easy to listen to what you say with an open mind and open heart, and to trust the place you’re speaking from.

It would indeed gladden my heart if you were to join the list. My understanding of the procedure is that you need the endorsement of three (not sure of the number of) people who know you and are prepared to ‘speak’ on your behalf. If my words contribute to this, I’m very happy for them to be used.

In anticipation of future connections,

Jo

Jo McHale

Confidentiality in coaching

Coaching,

Sometimes it helps me with my time to take something that I’m writing elsewhere and to post it on my blog. This posting is one I made to the Coaching At Work group on LinkedIn before Christmas and also to subscribers to the Training Journal Daily Digest and I’d love to extend the invitation to readers of my blog to join this discussion. I wrote:

Well, I’m just back from spending a week with Roger Schwarz, author of The Skilled Facilitator Approach. It was an immensely nourishing, enriching, challenging and thought-provoking experience.

Over dinner one evening, I was part of a discussion about confidentiality in coaching. A core value of Roger’s approach is transparency and we discussed the implications of transparency in coaching.

So I’d like to extend the question to you: what is the purpose of confidentiality in coaching? Yes we all understand that clients can feel safer to share themselves fully in coaching if they know their coach is committed to maintain confidentiality. But how often do we propose a contract of confidentiality whether the client asks for it or not – without discussion, even? And with what implications?

I’m guessing that most clients would love to work in a wider environment in which it’s safe to share and so I’m wondering – how does agreeing this contract of confidentiality in coaching serve this broader aspiration?

I found our discussion over dinner thought-provoking and I wonder: what thoughts do you have? And what practices?

Even as I write I’m grateful to John Fisher, one of my colleagues on the Digest for reshaping my question in a way which adds clarity and simplicity: do we use confidentiality for our benefit, the client’s or because we “just always do it”?

LinkedIn and the power of intention

Coaching

The new year has started – may it be a good one for you!

This week I have been catching up with all sorts of Christmas messages in amongst my client and other commitments. Amongst them I enjoy an invitation from Sara Milne Rowe to “Link In”. Sara and I met via our professional coach training and we both had the great pleasure before Christmas of joining Roger Schwarz and his colleagues for a week-long training in the Skilled Facilitator Approach. No doubt I’ll be writing more about this programme in the days and weeks ahead.

After accepting Sara’s invitation I check my progress in Linking In. When I set my intention last year to start connecting with people via LinkedIn I was already connected with 49 people. Today the number stands at precisely 100. I haven’t set out to send out invitations “en masse”. Rather, I have gone for the slow drip, drip of checking: “are we connected?” Over time, the numbers are building.

Of course, the question remains, why connect? This is also a question I am enjoying exploring. For the time being, I am appreciating the opportunity to read people’s updates – what are people up to? And of course, it’s also fascinating to discover what a small world we live in as I discover who else knows the people with whom I am connected.

Parallels between Nonviolent Communication and Gestalt

Alternative approaches, Coaching, ,

Last week I met with Marion Gillie, who brings a background in business psychology to her work as a coach, consultant and coaching supervisor, including a good dose of Gestalt.

As it happens, I have been discussing Gestalt with my friend and colleague Len Williamson and wondering about any connections between Gestalt and Nonviolent Communication. Len is ahead of me with his reading – he has just finished reading Marshal Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication: A Language for Life and I have yet to read his recommended text on Gestalt, Gestalt Therapy Integrated: Contours of Theory and Practice by Erving & Miriam Polster.

I am curious to receive Len’s initial thoughts on parallels between the two. He writes:

I am struck by the parallels between Gestalt and NVC. Both start with description. In Gestalt you cannot see that someone is happy you can only describe their physical features and describe what ‘is’. You must accept they may be happy, sad or something else and if you want to know which then you must ask them. There can be no judgement. In NVC there is non judgemental observation and description of what is taking place in a situation. In both approaches this one step is immensely powerful to help relationships between people.

In Gestalt there is scanning of yourself to notice your sensing, meaning making, intuition and emotions. Noticing the distinctions of each brings richness to the experience you are having and gives insight for any situation you are in. NVC considers what we feel in relation to what we observe and again applies non judgemental description. Insight arises from what our feelings are telling us through this form of description. Both approaches bring the power of recognising what our emotions are telling us.

NVC then moves to understand what needs are creating our feelings. Gestalt works hard to help someone describe very precisely what they want. Sounds easy but it is often surprising what we find out when we look closely at this question. Wars are started, relationships broken and extreme violence often occur around misunderstandings of wants, desires and needs. Immense healing is available with powerful use of this process.

The final move in NVC is in the request we make to enrich our lives. Built from non judgemental descriptions of observation, feeling and wants there is always a request that can be constructed that is nonviolent in nature and positively moves the world forward. In Gestalt seeking to complete what is incomplete is a possible parallel. Helping people finish the most troubling piece of unfinished business enables people to grow and move on to something new.

Thanks to Dorothy for drawing me in to explore NVC. I welcome thoughts from others on these powerful ways of being in the world.

As I read Len’s words I think of how Rosenberg trained as a psychiatrist and came to view the diagnoses and judgements he made in this role as “professional jackal” – if you like, judgements like any other, judgements that block compassionate communication between human beings.

I’m not sure what understanding (if any) he has of Gestalt. I know he studied with Carl Rogers. I know he was inspired by George Miller and George Albee to think about how he might “give psychology away”.

Nonviolent communication is designed to be easy to understand and to practice (even though practitioners find it has challenges and depths which are not immediately obvious).

Perhaps the last word belongs with Marion, for something she says during our meeting resonates for me: that coaches, whether clinically trained or not, need to be psychologically minded. Sometimes the coaching supervisor’s role with those who are not is to help them to develop this interest and capability.