How to join us
Coaching, by Rod Eames
From Issue Six of our newsletter.
What is coaching?
Coaching is the one-to-one series of conversations held between a person and their coach in order to acquire skills, improve performance, develop potential and plan career progression. Training, instruction and counselling are different activities which may overlap with coaching.
The Benefits of Coaching
FOR ORGANISATIONS:
A recent survey (1) showed that 83% of organisational respondents use coaching in some form.
Coaching, in one study (2), was shown to increase productivity by 88%, compared to training, which increased productivity by only 22.4%.
Another survey (3) found that an executive coaching programme produced a return on investment of 529%, and significant intangible benefits to the business, “especially productivity and increased employee satisfaction”. Similar results were revealed in a survey (4) which found that “a company’s investment in providing coaching to its executives realised an average return on investment of almost six times the cost of coaching”.
Coaching achieves these far-reaching benefits through effectively contributing to the whole organisation as it supports performance improvement at an individual level. Coaching is self-directed - the assessment of performance, learning goals, and execution of activities all rest with the coachee.
Benefits (5) include growth in self-awareness, confidence, leadership, understanding individual differences, stress management, life-work balance and communication skills.
The development of self-awareness and confidence are capabilities essential to growth and development. Greater self-awareness enables individuals to understand their own strengths, weaknesses, needs and internal drivers in order to manage their feelings better and to reframe their actions to meet their goals. Increased self-confidence and greater interest in others is achieved. This enables managers to contribute more to the workplace.
The Benefits of Coaching
FOR INDIVIDUALS:
Individual coaching supports the greater exercise of external competencies. Managers attending our programmes have reported a “wider perspective and organisational overview”, a “firmer base from which to address situations”, the “capacity to work with different ideas and opinions”, and “a capacity to deal with stress in a calmer, more tolerant way”, as well as greater ownership of their own decision-making and more effective communication skills. Other benefits include: better team dynamics, improved motivation, objective setting, increased leadership skills and business performance, greater acceptance of self and a greater ability to understand systems and analyse situations.
To achieve these benefits, coaching programmes need to be co-ordinated and planned in the same way as any other development activity. Use coaching in support of other activities - a training programme or change activity - so that the development goals are consistent and self–reinforcing.
Choose your Coaches carefully – they should fit your requirements and bring a range of helpful, practical tools and techniques. They should explain what their coaching model is, what they will do, how they will diagnose development needs, what they will spend time on, and what they will achieve.
Be prepared to be coached by us in how you use us. Our programmes are rigorous but flexible and focus on measurable outcomes. We want this to succeed as much as you do!
1 The work foundation 2003
2 Executive Coaching as a Transfer of Training Tool: Effects on productivity in a Public Agency Public Personnel Management Volume 26 No 4
3 Anderson MC Case study on the ROI of executive coaching 2001
4 Manchester usa.com
5 Why Coaching? Suzy Wales Journal of Change Management July 2002
Click here for a profile of Rod Eames.