Measuring the Results of Coaching
REPRINT: Dallas ASTD On-Line Newsletter, 4/02 (www.dallasastd.org)
To provide the best customer service, coaching must be more than a personal growth experience
How can you measure and track results of coaching and how can you assure that the investment of coaching dollars goes beyond the personal growth opportunity and truly benefits the organization?
The presence of coaching in corporate America has grown tremendously since the 1980’s. As an internal or external coach, or as the corporate sponsor of such programs, it is your ultimate job to help individuals and organizations achieve business improvements.
Structure of Coaching
Coaching is a learning process that has been proven as a highly effective method for facilitating individual change. The very nature of the coaching process follows the natural laws of learning.
- It takes place in a one-on-one relationship
- Involves a high level of communication and trust.
- Format is individualized, relevant to current performance needs and customized to the learning style and motivations of the learner.
- Program is carried out over a period of time, allowing for self-paced awareness and plenty of practice.
- Critically, there is regular accountability and reinforcement.
Coaching in Context
So how do you structure a coaching program to target and measure both individual growth and organizational benefits? The first step is to fully understand the context of the coaching program. This will frame the way the program is directed and measured.
Coaching is utilized to help a highly valued person maximize their potential. The situation may involve:
- A new developmental assignment
- Adjustment to a new position
- Grooming for a higher level position
- Dealing with a major change in the organization
- A new cultural initiative requiring expanded competencies
The next step is to discover what the person being coached wants to achieve. Beginning with the first client meeting, a skilled coach builds relationship and rapport and listens for what motivates. How does the client see this situation and what growth opportunity is most attractive? What desirable gain does the client perceive? What results are most important? What change is most exciting? Personal concerns related to the business issue should be included, such as reducing stress, gaining more work/life balance, building confidence in handling a person or situation, or just the relief of having an objective listener.
Before designing the coaching plan, set the stage to gather more information. To establish informed goals and measures, so that the whole business situation is addressed, a broader perspective of the client’s situation is required. Ask who could participate in both interviews and 360-degree assessments to gain more understanding of the coaching client’s environment. This typically involves the client’s manager, direct reports, peers, and the corporate sponsor of the coaching program. Agree in advance how this will be conducted, who will be involved, and what information will be shared with whom.
When designing a coaching plan, it is important to find out about:
1. The most important drivers of the business
2. The corporate culture, history and values
3. The formal and informal corporate structure
4. The political environment
5. Behaviors and results most needed
6. How client is perceived
7. Issues impacting job performance
8. How success is measured
9. Recent changes and initiatives
Compiling all of this information makes for a very effective feedback session. Your preparedness will serve your client well and give you both a good foundation to set appropriate goals that will foster individual growth and benefit organizational results.
Guidelines for Setting Coaching Goals
Focus the coaching program on a developmental goal that is important and exciting to the client.
Example: “Increase ability to develop my people”
If this is what the client really wants, this is where he/she will have the most motivation and energy.
Connect the developmental goal to the larger organizational needs. Identify how the client’s growth in that area, will benefit the department/company as a whole. Be specific and choose a business metric that will be impacted. Using the above example, it could be: Increase Customer Service scores by 15% by year-end.
Develop action plans and milestones. Using the information from the 360’s and interviews, gives you and the client a pathway for achieving the desired growth. Zero in on specific behaviors, actions, and activities. This may include meeting with each direct report about their developmental needs, reading a book, taking a class, listening more than talking, etc.
Review both the soft and hard measures. The soft measure (developmental progress) reports how well the skill of “developing my people” is going. That can be seen by gauging how often the client is meeting with his people, if he/she has specific developmental plans for each employee, is regular feedback and coaching taking place and is it effective? The hard measure is the targeted business results. In this case, you have agreed that the client’s growth will affect the business by increasing the customer service scores by 15%. It is easy to see the business impact and further, the organization should be able to determine the financial benefit of that increase.
Using the discipline of setting informed goals for the individual and for the organization and tracking and measuring results in both arenas, assures the coaching will facilitate meaningful growth for the learner and provide ROI for Coaching services to the organization.
About the Author: Elaine Siciliano Morris is principal consultant and founder of Sea Change Inc, an organizational effectiveness firm based in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. A frequent keynote speaker and workshop presenter on leadership, corporate culture and personal growth, Elaine works with leaders and their teams to create productive and rewarding work environments. More information about her is available on her website: www.seachangecoach.com, or contact Elaine by phone at 972-407-0648.
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