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What Makes a Difference to Coaching Outcomes?

All stakeholders involved in the coaching process want to know which factors will enhance the likelihood of achieving positive outcomes. We've identified just a few of the key factors that surfaced in the literature as well as in our executive coaching experience. This list of factors that make a difference to outcomes is preliminary and will mature as companies take a closer look at the determinants of coaching results.

Organizational Support. Most coaching experts agree that organizations must provide resources to support executive coaching and recognize that it requires a long-term investment in order for it to succeed. Executives need follow-on coaching and reinforcement in order to sustain changes in behavior. In addition, professional development should be kept separate from performance because the high level of trust and openness required for development would be compromised if these two essential processes are mixed.

Coaching Style Preferences. Coaching recipients enter an engagement with a variety of style preferences that can impact their participation in the coaching process and therefore the outcomes. Our executive coaching practice seeks to understand three dimensions of preference: how the coachee prefers to receive help, when they prefer to receive it, and what they prefer to focus on.

To define each dimension, we have identified anchors on each side. For the first dimension-bow the coachees prefer to receive help-we ask if they prefer directive or nondirective coaching. Directive coaching means that the recipient perceives the coach as either a teacher or advisor who gives direct advice. Nondirective coaching means they perceive the coach as a counselor or facilitator who helps them explore their issues and generate their own solutions.

To understand when they prefer to get help, we ask if they perceive coaching as an ongoing activity and commitment (programmatic) or as a periodic and spontaneous one that occurs according to specific needs (circumstantial). To assess what they prefer to focus on, we ask if they view coaching as a vehicle to achieve overall growth and development (holistic) or if they would rather focus on particular skills, tasks, or issues (specific). Using the Coaching Effectiveness Survey, we collected responses from 1400 coachees and learned that

	61 percent of coachees say they would prefer to receive nondirective coaching; 39 percent prefer directive coaching.
	78 percent of coachees say that they would rather have programmatic coaching. Only 22 percent prefer circumstantial coaching.
	85 percent of coachees want holistic coaching. Only 15 percent say they prefer specific coaching.

Therefore, the most commonly preferred coaching style is nondirective, programmatic and holistic, which we calls the counselor style. The least­preferred style is directive, circumstantial, and specific - the manager style. These findings suggest that companies should be sure to reach alignment between coachee preferences and coaches' styles in order to maximize satisfaction and optimize changes.

Coachability. Some executives are more open to coaching than others. Some are disposed to accept coaching while others are not. No matter how brilliant and effective a coach might be, no change will occur if the coachee does not take responsibility for it. Simply put, the question to ask is, "Is the coachee ready, willing, and able to be coached?" Coaching organizations use self-assessments of "coachability" to detect the coachee's receptiveness.

This assessment is used to increase coachees' self­awareness regarding obstacles to their participation in the process. Clearly this is not enough information to understand coachability as a factor in the outcomes of coaching. We have developed a coachability model that will help coaches and organizations understand how coachable an executive is, what behaviors reflect the executive's degree of coachability, and what is required for effective change.

Coachability assessments help organizations predict who will most benefit from the coaching, how to respond to coachees with lower coachability ratings, and how to better match coaches and coachees to take full advantage of the relationship.

Internal Versus External Coaches. Coaches can be individuals who are internal to the organization or external to it. An internal coach might be a boss, manager, or a team leader. An external coach is generally a consultant outside of the organization, a third party who can be objective and is not required to assume any additional roles within it other than "coach." The kind of coach may be an important factor because feedback from those who receive internal coaching is less than ideal.

For example, 60 percent of coachees, all who were coached by internal coaches, said they would like better coaching than they received. An additional 56 percent reported that the coaching they received was often not focused on the right things and did not help them learn exactly what they should do differently to be more effective." (Barbara Singer, Recovering Executives at Risk of Derailing, (Durango, CO: Lore International Institute, 2001), 9.)

Another organization surveyed more than four thousand corporations and learned that external coaches are most frequently used for executives." (International Coaching Federation. "Analysis of the 1999 Survey on Coaching in Corporate America." http://www.coachfederation.org/pressroom/pr-corpsurvey.htm, 16 May 2002.)

Reasons cited for using external coaches included the perception that internal coaches are less valuable, less available (no time), or will blur work and coaching roles. In addition, external coaches were in a better position to maintain confidentiality, be available, and possess the ability to train the direct reports of the corporate executives. Therefore, the trend in executive coaching is to hire external coaches because they are less biased, more available, and focused on the right issues.

Competence of the Coach. Coaching is a relationship and therefore the competence of the coach is another significant contributor to the success of the engagement. At a minimal level, coaches must be carefully screened, educated, and certified. The ICF estimates that as many as 10,000 people call themselves business coaches. Thus, organizations must carefully select qualified and competent executive coaches in order to achieve their goals.

To illustrate how the competence of the coach can affect the outcome, consider another finding from our Coaching Effectiveness Survey. We found that 38 percent of coachees say that their coaches were ineffective at helping them set action plans in order to change specific behaviors. (Terry Bacon, Nondirective Coaching: Helping People Change, (Durango, CO: Lore International Institute), 14.)

Thus, the competence of the coach directly influenced their ability to implement lessons learned from the coaching engagement. Another example is hiring a coach without the skills to recognize when another intervention such as counseling or psychotherapy-is more appropriate. Steven Berglas recommends screening all executives for psychological problems before entering the executive coaching process." (Steven Berglas, "The very real dangers of coaching," Harvard Business Review, 80,6 (June, 2002), 92.) If coaches do not have sufficient skill to do this screening, they may do more harm than good to the executive as well as his or her organization.

 For how to get the most out of your coaching, send an email to bs@futurevisions.org
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