The last 15 years have seen a steady increase in companies embracing executive coaching as a core piece in their leadership development suite of tools. Those who’ve been coached swear by it. Others are still skeptical. A large component of the distrust stems from the lack of compulsory regulation in the industry, leaving consumers vulnerable as they try to discern the value they can expect from their coach.
Choosing a coach may be easier and lower risk than you think. There are essentially 2 core components to evaluate in your choice of coach:
Are they qualified?
Experience in business or as a leader doesn’t always make for a good mentor and that is even truer when it comes to coaching. Unfortunately, many consultants see themselves as an expert in their field and then add the title of “Coach” to their name. Would you hire someone as an accountant or an architect if they were not certified by their profession? Coaching is also a profession with clear professional requirements in training and in conduct. When hiring a coach 2 questions will quickly tell you if they are a qualified professional; “Where did you get your coaching certification?” and “What International Coach Federation (ICF) credential do you hold?” If they are not credentialed and are not certified by a professional coaching body such as the ICF you are not hiring a professional.
The ICF is the largest international professional coaching body. They issue 3 levels of coaching credentials (ACC, PCC & MCC), they hold coach training schools up to a high standard, and hold their coaches up to a code of ethics and a professional standard for the protection of the public, similar to other professions.
Whether it is individual or team coaching, be sure they have the training and credentialing and are not simply a consultant calling themselves a coach?
Are they a good fit?
Fit is a key pillar of the success of coaching – both for the individual receiving the coaching and the company who is hiring them. If a coach doesn’t mention the importance of fit but sells him or herself as able to ‘coach anyone’ beware. Everyone has different styles of learning so the same coach may be loved by some and not by others. Even a good wine isn’t everyone’s taste! Fit is as important for the individual receiving the coaching as it is for the company that is hiring them. Once you’ve determined that a coach is qualified (credentialed and certified), you move on to check for fit. This means that coachees (people receiving the coaching) benefit from having a selection of coaches to choose from.
As we began working with executive teams it became necessary to build a diverse team of qualified Professional Coaches in order to give our clients choice – so they would easily find a good fit for their style of learning.
Fit for your organization is as important as fit for the individual coachee.
Do they understand business? They do not need to be an expert in your field (in fact that can be a disadvantage) but do need to have enough experience to understand the context in which the coachee exists.
Do they fit with your organizational culture and values? When you meet with them assess if their language, values, and approach will fit with your organization.
To see how easy this is, think about something you’d really love to get coaching on, then go to our “Skills at a Glance” page and choose a few coaches to compare. Once you have your top 2 preferences, look at their full bios and you’ll start to get a good sense of which coach you’d like to interview before you commit to working with them for 6 or 12 months. Even if you’re not thinking of hiring a coach right now, it’s a fun and easy exercise to try.
Other questions to factor into your decision-making process:
How long and at what level have they been coaching? Do they seem too cheap?
Surveys show that, at CEO and direct report level, Executive Coaches’ monthly fees are:
37% over $1,000 per month
24% at $800 to $1,000 per month
with only 9% charging under $400
With more than 62% of coaches’ charging $800 or more, you should think twice about hiring a coach who thinks they’re only worth half that. If you’re paying at the low end, are you really getting value for money?
What do their clients say about them?
Do they survey their clients for feedback and ROI and do they have ‘proof of concept’ in the form of reliable testimonials. A great testimonial is repeat business. How many of their clients become repeat clients? Not all clients will need coaching services on an ongoing basis, but a great test is whether clients come back the next time they need a coach, or if they move on to look for a new provider. Interested in what our clients say about us?
Do they offer other services that may complement the coaching?
For example, we, measure the coaching effectiveness through a survey co-designed with our clients.
Read Part 1 of How to Measure Executive Coaching – Feedback
I hope that you found this 2 part article useful and that it takes some of the risks out of hiring a coach. We’d love to hear your comments and how you’ve put any of this into practice.
Services are always hard to determine the value of, how do you know if you’re getting good value from your accountant, architect, or lawyer? Executive coaching is no different. You can’t ‘kick the tires’ of a service before you buy it, but you probably do have a few indicators that help you determine the value you want from a service. This ‘buyers’ conundrum’ has surfaced enough lately that we interrupt our Series on Leadership Secrets to bring you a 2 part Blog on “How to Measure Executive Coaching”.
We believe you can only see the value if you’re asking the right questions, so we co-design feedback surveys with our larger clients on their coaching metrics.
We measure:
- coach fit,
- goal achievement,
- observable impact,
- coach professionalism, and
- competencies developed
We coach leaders, high potential individuals who are used to challenging themselves to more. 47% of the leaders we coach are senior management to CEO level and 39% are emerging leaders or middle management. Coach fit is critical to success as the power of the coaching is only as good as the combination of safety and challenge. These leaders have already challenged themselves as far as they can. The coach must create a safe enough environment for the client to be challenged beyond what they would do otherwise.
Part of that safety is knowing the coach has an unwavering belief in them as leaders. 94% of our clients surveyed always “sensed my coach’s belief in me personally”, with 6% mostly sensing the coach’s belief. 56% said they always “felt safe”, with 44% most of the time, and 94% experience the “right amount of challenge to go beyond my comfort zone” most or all the time.
Goal Achievement can be a tricky one as maintaining confidentiality on what the client is working on is key to the success of coaching. Most of the coaching goals are set by the coachee themselves, however, their boss or sponsor is allowed 1 core goal they put forward for the coachee to work on. That, in turn, is confidential between the coach, coaches, and boss/sponsor. We measure this by simply asking “Did you accomplish the majority of your goals?” 100% of clients surveyed say yes to both the sponsor and self-identified goals! They can elaborate in the comment box -and many do.
The observable impact is measured by simply asking “In what ways have others observed the impact of coaching on you?”. We know that behaviour change has taken place when third-party feedback confirms it. Examples of third-party feedback are ‘greater trust by others’, ‘More aware of my audience / other team members’ needs and differences ‘, ‘My boss originally said I wasn’t strategic enough and he said there was a marked improvement at the end. I’m a broader thinker. I am now able to stay in a strategic frame of mind and not get dragged into the day-to-day often. Today I think more corporately than departmental.’ and ‘better listening and different analysis and approach on the issues’.
All difficult to put metrics to, but observable and measurable nonetheless.
Coach professionalism is used for us to monitor ourselves and to see where we can improve. We care deeply about the coaching profession and aim to represent it well. 100% of clients surveyed ranked all our coaches as “Professional” or “Highly Professional” on all 5 indicators, from “Initial Contact” or “Addressing any process issues you had” to “Finalising the Contact”. All would recommend their coach to others! This high satisfaction level also speaks to the effort we put in around matching clients with one of our 7 coaches as well as the diversity and skill available on our team.
While we do not get clients to give us feedback on their specific goals, we do ask for feedback on core ‘intangible’ leadership competencies developed through their coaching. We customise the competencies measured to those most important to the company we’re working with. Typically we end up with around 9. Some common competencies measured are; “Self-Awareness”, “Relational Ability”, “Dealing with Conflict”, “Internal Confidence” and “Influence”. The feedback usually comes back with the coaching having had a significant impact or having exceeded expectations.
If you want to ‘kick the tires’ of a coaching service before you hire them, use these measurements as questions for their references. If they claim to be a right fit for all your executives, beware. Rather look for a team of coaches, like ours, or hire a coach who advises you to first interview 2 or 3 coaches before deciding on the best fit. Lastly, if you’re planning to make coaching a core component of your leadership development, ask the coaching organization if they’re willing to co-design a feedback survey that provides you with valuable metrics while still honouring the confidentiality inherent in the coaching relationship.
If you found this helpful, you may be interested in Part 2 on Coach Credentials. Alternatively, you may be reading this as you’re considering hiring a coach. If you are, we commend your commitment to growing your leadership capacity and encourage you to review our line-up of highly qualified, impactful coaches.
We’ve shared our thoughts with you. We’d love to hear how you go about selecting coaches and measuring the impact of your coaching investment.
Christine took a 4year sabbatical from our team during which time she completed her Ph.D. in Leadership. We’re excited to have Christine back on our team and have asked her to highlight some of the insights she gained during the last four years of studying, researching, and writing about leadership as part of her Ph.D.
“It’s a great pleasure to be back working with people who are actively learning, growing, and practising a different way of being as leaders. The leadership conversation is never far from my thinking and I gladly share some of my insights with you.
At the beginning of the study, I was curious about how some leaders were able to hold a high degree of social awareness placing human concerns as primary in their decision-making. I looked at the current state of leader development in relationship to the complex challenges that leaders currently face. I questioned the models that portray leadership as hierarchical, formulaic, and simplistic. I also believed that there exists a great hunger for leadership and a need to radically dissect our traditional perspectives in light of sweeping changes globally in philosophies, values, and narratives.
When I talked with leaders about their exceptional moments in leading, they told me stories of leadership from the standpoint of relationships and interconnections rather than steps or techniques. From this perspective, I began to understand leaders and leadership, not as disembodied traits, characteristics, and steps, but rather as social practices embedded in webs of significance and interdependency, where story-telling is the primary means of relating with others. It became apparent to me that leaders grow through experience rather than by experience and that they create lives of meaning for themselves and others through the sharing and integration of their stories.
How did this experience change me as a leader?
I came to understand leadership, not as something that resides within me as an individual leader but rather as the product of people coming together to share their stories, understandings, and experiences. My research findings underscored the idea of leadership as a possibility that exists between people rather than a set of traits or behaviours belonging to an individual. It arises from our collective thinking when we ask the hard questions about who we are and how we want to be with others. Leadership, as a property of the group, emerges when we respectfully listen to others, when we speculate with others about the kind of world we want to create, and when we see the future as one of infinite possibilities. It is much more about who we are being rather than what we are doing.
Today, messages fly at us fast and furious; underscoring that what is rewarded is the quick completion of tasks from the checklist, not the slow contemplation required for a deep understanding of what we most need. In complex times, merely handing down the tried and true will not help us to be more ethical and moral leaders; for that, we need others, contemplation, practice and epiphany. Use the comment box below to respond to Christine’s insights.
Meet our other talented Coaches
Like the skiers in the photograph, leaders are often faced with decisions that are complex and where making the wrong decision could have serious consequences. In such situations, decision makers can find themselves at either end of the decision making spectrum – analysis paralysis on the one end or falsely simplifying the ‘landscape’ or context to make the decision easier on the other. In the case of our back-country skier – either method could have life threatening results. In business it may not be your life that is at stake, but it could cost the ‘life’ of your project, your credibility or even your business as a whole.
Struggling with decisions in complex or ambiguous situations doesn’t mean you’re a poor decision maker, it likely has its root in other factors. A big contributor is the myth that; “While there may be more than one way to do it, there is only one BEST way to do it”. If you find yourself in agreement with the ‘only one BEST way’ thinking, you are probably missing many great decision opportunities.
There are very few situations where that thinking is true – even fewer when it involves people. Any time a decision has impact on people it is more likely to have an optimal range of BEST decisions to choose from. The ‘only one BEST way’ thinking is borrowed from a mechanical mindset. A context in which it is often true, but not so in most leadership decisions, as very few leadership decisions are purely mechanical.
Try it out for yourself. Think of a complex or ambiguous situation where you believed there was only one BEST decision. Maybe you’re in one right now? How did that impact your decision making? Many great leaders find their decision making compromised because they are holding tightly to the belief that there is only one right answer, only one best way to proceed. It is true that there are right and wrong decisions, good and bad decisions. Think of your scenario. Imagine it on a continuum with the analysis-paralysis at the one end and ‘quick-n-dirty’ decision at the other end. Where on that continuum do you see the optimal decision making range. Think of 5 to 8 decision options you could make from there. Assess them at a gut level. Which are your top 3? What more information do you need before you act on them (using the same continuum scale)? Choose and act.
Take the time to try it out and we’d like to hear how it changes things for you and for the outcome as a result.
This leadership secret is probably best illustrated outside of work.
How do you know that your parent, spouse, child or partner loves you? What makes you sure and what causes you to doubt?
There are many visible things they do and say that point to their love for you. But that’s not what really clinches the deal. While they are an important part of your knowing, they are far from being the whole picture.
What really makes you sure of their love is the way in which all the visible indicators are matched by the invisible aspects that accompany and validate the visible. Pause and think about that…unless the invisible validates the visible we instinctively know we’re being duped.
The same is true in leadership.
As a leader, you can say and do all the ‘right’ things, but unless the invisible components are there to validate your words and actions, they will backfire.
The invisible components cannot be layered on to who we are, we cannot manufacture them.
They are a result of who we are at our core and how we view the world and others.
You cannot fake genuine interest – the invisible gives you away.
You cannot force yourself to be genuinely interested – the invisible will give it away. If you want your team, your boss or your peers to believe you are genuinely interested you are going to have to pause, open your mind and find what genuinely interests you about them.
The same is true for all the other invisible pillars of leadership such as commitment, belief in someone and trust. The unexpected advantage of ‘finding instead of faking’ interest, belief or commitment is that the hard work of ‘creating connection’, ‘building open communication’ and ‘giving tough feedback’ all becomes much easier.
Try it and share your insights with us.
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If you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist.
Brené Brown is a researcher who believed this to be true. In our organisations we have many who hold to this maxim. Yet, on another level, we know that there are things – messy, intangible things – that can’t be measured…at least not quantitatively.
Brené Brown started her research looking for a way to measure the intangible and ended up with some surprising insights that are not only useful to life, but also to organisational life.
Watch this video and let me know what your thoughts are.
Below are a few questions to stimulate your thinking:
As a leader, be vulnerable with yourself and think honestly about the following:
How worthy am I of love and respect?
Am I enough?
How true does the following statement appear to me “Vulnerability is the birthplace of strength and creativity – Denying vulnerability is to deny creativity”?
What would change in how I manage/lead my team if I see us as ‘enough’?
Bigger than us
How much thought do you give to the footprint you leave? In your family? Circle of friends? Business or place of work? The community? What about the footprint we leave as an organisation or a country?
Ease of global travel and trade, whether actual travel by car or plane or virtual (via the internet), means that we leave our footprint in places we may not even think about. If the world is becoming a virtual village then what we see as our community must include all the places we connect with. Including connections that feel more removed like those through the internet and the places we trade with (directly or indirectly).
With nearly half the world’s population living on less that $2.50per day , something’s not right.
High poverty levels in one sector of society, spell disaster for the whole country. With country boundaries blurring (eg the bit-coin) none of us can escape the impact of poverty in other parts of the globe. It is no longer something that only affects the developing world. The developing world is part of our world and what happens their will impact all of us, increasingly over time.
% of population living on less than $2 per day.
Your Footprint IS bigger than you
15% of all our fees goes directly towards uplifting those in the poorest countries in our global village. Just in this last year we spent over $16,000 towards economic empowerment.
This means that, through the simple act of choosing us as a service provider, all our clients have helped uplift those in the poorest sectors of our global market.
Here’s how:
Freedom through Business Development
Our aim is to end economic oppression, one family at a time, by giving families the means with which to participate in capitalist economies. As business leaders, we understand the advantage we have is largely due to an accident of our birth and desire to create opportunity for potential business leaders born to less fortunate circumstances. To this end over $7,000 of the $16,000 has gone directly as loans to individuals to aid them in starting or expanding their businesses. ($5,100 to Hope International and $2,066 in loans through Kiva.org)
Since Oct 2014 (when we started our CSR program) we have lent $4,557 through Kiva and we keep re-lending it as it is paid back. It has now financed $13,825 of loans to 64 small businesses in 18 countries. If you’d like to contribute directly to it, please join our lending team or choose someone to lend to on your own.
Freedom through Education
South Africa has some of the worlds best schools, yet the majority of its schools are under staffed and under resourced.
In 2013 we began supporting the leadership development of school principals in disadvantaged schools in South Africa. We are partnering with an amazing organisation Partners for Possibility (PfP) who are equipping the school principals to turn the schools around. They partner with a business leader who mentors them and develop skills to engage their staff, the parents and the local business community.
They are taught leadership, community engagement, strategy and so much more. Some of their schools are seeing their pass rate go up from 30% to over 80%. I have seen their work first hand and am seriously impressed. It costs $6,000 to sponsor a school and in 2013, we set aside $8,900 of our CSR towards it.
There is a direct correlation between quality education and ability to partake in a capitalist economy. We see this as investing in the next generation’s ability to participate in the economy.
Learn more about how our mission and values drive us
Thank-you
A big thank-you to all our clients who have contributed, through our fees and, perhaps without realizing it, directly to improving the quality of life of hundreds of people around the globe. Not through once-off hand-outs, but by helping us fund their access to the tools for self-improvement. Thank-you for helping us leave a positive footprint.
Something Fun
Below is a very entertaining and interesting video on how the world has moved in 200 years. I would be very interested in what thoughts it provokes in you. Please use the comment field to leave your thoughts.
Interesting Facts
- Hope International is “home grown in BC” and was recommended to me by a friend who works in a similar field in South Africa.
- 100% of money loaned through Kiva.org is used to fund the loan. They rely on donations and volunteers around the globe to keep running.
- PfP started 4 years ago with one school and now has over 150 schools with more on the waiting list – driven mostly by the impact both business and principles are seeing.
I found this TED TALK on The Danger of a Single Story very thought provoking.
I wonder what single stories we live with that give us myopic vision in our lives and our organisations?