What's the value of coaching? Is it really worth it?
Like any ‘new’ (relatively speaking) area of practice, executive coaching has had its fair share of scrutiny regarding the Return On Investment, the efficacy, and ultimately the value it generates. There is a growing body of evidence supporting what we already knew, effective coaching has a positive and observable impact on employee performance, engagement, wellbeing, self-regulation, goal attainment, and transformational leadership (Burt & Talati, 2017; Teebom et, at, 2014; Jones, et.al, 2016; O'Connor & Cavanagh, 2014). In other words, it works and if you’re smart, you’ll seek out coaching for yourself, your team and make it accessible to the rest of the organisation.
The ‘ROI’ of Coaching
Of course, variables such as capabilities of coach, scope and length of coaching, the willingness of the coachee to engage and the environment the coaching is happening all play a major role in coaching success. For the sake of this discussion, let’s assume 1) The capability of the coach is high 2) The coachee is willing to engage and 3) The environmental context is conducive to a successful coaching outcome. With these conditions being met, coaching becomes an opportunity to express freely, experiment with ideas, test new behaviours and develop as a person and a leader. As outlined in his research (Grant, 2012) the late Anthony Grant, founder of the first Masters of Coaching Psychology course in the world, suggested that traditional ROI calculations were misleading and ineffective in explaining the positive impact of coaching. As such, trying to put a dollar figure to a coaching engagement has often resulted in highly spurious and misleading figures. In many ways, trying to place a dollar value on the impact coaching has had on a person is like asking somebody to explain the worth, in dollars, of the relationship they have with a close friend, spouse or child. While it is possible to come up with a number, as sophisticated as the formula may be, it is likely to produce a dollar amount that doesn’t ‘feel’ right.
The value of coaching for an individual- Wellbeing & engagement
Rather than try to put a dollar value to the impact coaching has had on a person, a much better way to evaluate coaching efficacy is to measure outcomes such as wellbeing, engagement (both leader and their team), goal attainment, and transformational leadership. After all, if we can see a positive shift in a leaders behaviour, it creates a positive ripple that flows through every interaction both direct and indirect with that leader. Moreover, this positive ripple acts just like a stone dropping in the centre of a still pond. The ripples gently expand in all directions, so relationships in all areas of a leaders’ life will be enhanced through the process of coaching.
The value of coaching for organisations- The ripple effect
When I engage with organisations, usually with an intact leadership team, and sometimes with a broader cohort of leaders, I get to see how this ‘ripple effect’ contributes to enhancing organisational culture. At the core of it, culture is made of the relationships, beliefs and behaviours that are collectively shared in the organisation (I recently wrote an article on organisational culture that goes into more detail you can read here). At times I have been able to engage with employees at all levels in the hierarchy from the Managing Director, senior managers, middle managers right through to the front line staff, all in the same organisation. Being able to observe the beliefs, behaviours and relationships that perpetually reinforce the culture at all levels was astounding. The depth of insight a coach is able to access is comparable to an artist shifting from painting a figure on a canvas to sculpting in three dimensions. The result is far more accurate, observable from every angle and highly nuanced. In a study by Sean 0’Connor and Michael Cavanagh (2014), they measured the positive impact of coaching within an organisation using Social Networking analysis. They demonstrated that coaching enhanced wellbeing of coachees but also those that were closely connected to them. The authors concluded that the positive influence of leadership coaching extends beyond the individual being coached.
The value of the ‘immeasurable’
Just imagine for a moment, that you are at the top of your game, you’ve always enjoyed success and have been rewarded throughout your career for your capability. You’ve seen others struggle at times and wondered why they weren’t able to ‘work harder’ or ‘push through’ to succeed. The very next day, you get a call from your CEO explaining that you have been terminated and an envelope with a severance package was in transit to your home, you are no longer required to go to work. Regardless of the legitimacy of the reason for termination, the value of the severance package, nothing feels fair.
In another example, imagine you are at the beginning of your career and you have landed a massive opportunity to step into a leadership role. You don’t feel ready, you know you don’t have the experience or capability to be a great leader yet but somehow got the role. You feel out of your depth, anxious to succeed but not sure where to start. The day before you were to start your new role, you get a call from an old mentor who offers you sage advice, allays your fears and reinforces their belief in you. You feel an inner confidence rise, your voice takes on a new timber and a calm feeling of ‘I’ve got this’ washes over you.
Finally, I’d like you to imagine that you are a great leader, your team admires you, your organisation rewards you for your success but still, you want to be better. Like a boxer fighting with his shadow, you know you can’t get better at your craft until you have someone real to spar with. The problem is, you don’t know where to find them but you know that to continue to improve you need to be challenged.
In the above scenarios, the value placed on what each person needs is highly subjective, extremely context-specific and would be very difficult to translate into a dollar figure. However, if I was to suggest that as the terminated executive, should you not get any support, you would fall into a deep depression and never find your feet again, what value would you place on getting some help? Similarly, as the upcoming first-time leader, what if I was to tell you that without adequate mentoring and guidance you would fail and likely never want to dip your toe in leadership again. Last but not least, if you were the admired leader that never found somebody to challenge you beyond your current capability, you would lose your motivation to improve along with your far-reaching influence.
The true value of coaching
Like all the best sportspeople in the world, whether it be a team or individual sport they all have coaches. Would they still be great athletes without a coach? Absolutely. Would they achieve the same level of success without coaching? Not likely. There’s a point at which the dollar value you place on the intervention becomes less important than what it means to you. In business, it’s the same. While knowing that it will help you be more successful financially is a critical decision-making insight, the real (immeasurable) value comes with the ability to clearly articulate that which is most important to you and focus all of your effort on it. That clarity and the associated change in thought, feeling and behaviour is the true value of coaching.
References
Burt, D. & Talati, Z. (2017) The unsolved value of executive coaching: A meta-analysis of outcomes using randomised control trial studies. International Journal of Evidence-Based Coaching and Mentoring, 15(2)17-24.
Grant, A. (2012). ROI is a poor measure of coaching success: Towards a more holistic approach using a well-being and engagement framework. Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 5(2), 74-85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17521882.2012.672438
Jones, R. J., Woods, S. A., & Guillaume, Y. R. F. (2016). The effectiveness of workplace coaching: A meta-analysis of learning and performance outcomes from coaching. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 89(2), 249–277. https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12119
O’connor, S. & Cavanagh, M. (2014). Research Poster. The Coaching Ripple Effect: The individual and Systemic Level Influence of Leadership Development. http://www.psywb.com/content/3/1/2.
Theeboom, T., Beersma, B., & van Vianen, A. (2014) Does coaching work? A meta-analysis on the effects of coaching on individual-level outcomes in an organizational context, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 9:1, 1-18, DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2013.837499
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I’m fascinated with people, always have been and always will be. From a very early age, I keenly observed people, I was curious about what motivated them, what made them successful and why they made certain choices. This curiosity led me to study Psychology. After graduating with my Master of Organisational Psychology, I worked for Gallup, a global leader in engagement and strengths-based development. I became a strengths-based coach, engagement expert and worked with senior leaders all over the world.
If you’re curious about how I can help you personally or with the leadership of your team/organisation get in touch via my email: joe@joehart.com.au | website: joehart.com.au | Phone: +61425 224 825