You are worried about Joe.  When he was promoted from technician to manager, he fit in well and his employees loved him.  Now that he has been promoted to an executive within his division, he is experiencing difficulties: he is having problems thinking strategically and anticipating problems.  You are feeling frustrated because although Joe has attended training courses on those topics, they have been able to help him with his challenges.  You need Joe to succeed because the company has made a major investment in him in the past 10 years and you believe the knowledge and experience he brings to the table are invaluable. 
Would Joe benefit from a professional coach? 

What is Professional Coaching? 

While informal coaching- or mentoring programs- have been present in most organizations for quite a while, the practice of hiring an outside professional to coach an individual on a one-on-one basis is a fairly recent development.  This type of coaching has become more popular as organizations realize that becoming a leader is not second nature-- principles must be taught and skills must be honed.   Many times, the higher up you go in any organization, the more difficult it is to find training programs that are cost-effective and address the employee’s specific challenges.  This is why many organizations have turned to individualized coaching.  

	Intervention for Corrective Action.  Provides targeted help and support for a leader facing a “must change” or critical turn-around situation.
	Specific Skill or Leadership Style Improvement.  Helps a leader develop a particular skill set or address a particular problem or situation.
	Preparation for Specific Assignments.  Helps prepare a leader for a new assignment or a change in job status.
	Continuous Education and Professional Development.  Extends over a longer period of time and helps the leader continually focus on the key critical factors that affect bottom-line results.

Following are a few environmental factors that could indicate to you that one of your employees may need the assistance of a coach:

	Declining Business Indicators.  These could include a decline in production, safety, quality, profit or other key business measures.
	Negative Influence.  Leaders can exhibit behaviors that negatively influence the organization’s culture, evidenced by such factors as worsening employee morale, high employee turnover, lower production or other negative factors.
	Leader Lacks Necessary Skills.  Leaders may need to upgrade their skills to support the organization’s values, goals and customer expectations.
	Need for Positive Environment.  Leaders need to create a positive environment and culture that encourages job ownership and self-motivation.

The Value of Coaching 

One-on-one professional coaching is intense and often-times expensive, but it produces results that in most cases far exceed the investment.  A recent study by Manchester, Inc., a career management consulting firm out of Jacksonville Florida, entitled “Executive Coaching Yields Return on Investment” found that a company’s investment in providing coaching to its executives realized an average return on investment of almost six times the cost of the coaching.  

1. Productivity (48%)

2. Quality (48%)

3. Organizational Strength (48%)

4. Customer Service (39%)

5. Reducing Customer Complaints (34%)

6. Retaining Executives who Received Coaching (32%)

7. Cost Reductions (23%)

8. Bottom-line profitability (22%)

This study also found the benefits to the executives who received the coaching included:

1. Improved working relationship with direct report (77%)

2. Improved working relationships with immediate supervisors (71%)

3. Improved teamwork (67%)

4. Improved working relationships with peers (63%)

5. Improved job satisfaction (61%)

6. Improved conflict reduction (52%)

7. Improved organizational commitment (44%)

8. Improved working relationships with clients (37%)

Another, often hard to measure, benefit of the coaching relationship is the resulting loyalty of the leader to the company providing the coach.  Your organization is in effect furthering the employee’s professional development by helping the employee improve their managerial and/or leadership skills.  This greatly increases the likelihood of retaining the employee and increasing loyalty to your organization.

“The real difference between success and failure in a corporation can be very often traced to the question of how well the organization brings out the great energies and talents of its people.”
 –Thomas J. Watson, Jr., former IBM Chief Executive.

Coaching ROI 

It may seem at first that you could create a simple mathematical equation to determine how much has already been invested in the employee and how much it would cost to replace that employee versus how much it costs to coach the employee.  However, when considering hiring a coach for middle to upper-management or executives, there are many intangible items that need to be considered as well.  The following list of questions can help you determine if you have an employee worth the investment of coaching:

	Will the employee's position enable him or her to leverage the coaching success to other parts of the organization?
	Does the employee possess unique organizational knowledge?
	If so, would it be difficult to transfer that knowledge from the employee to another?
	Does that employee have a skill set that is fairly unique within that company?
	If so, would it be difficult to transfer those skills from the employee to another?
	Can you pinpoint specific problem areas the employee is experiencing?
	Have you already tried general training courses or an informal mentoring or feedback program?
	Will the employee be likely to be motivated to participate in the coaching process?
	Will the organization agree to provide time for the employee to participate in the coaching process?
	Is the employee willing to work with a coach on his or her own time?

If the answers to the above questions were mostly YES then you have a good candidate for executive coaching.  The ASTD research study also cites, “in the case of an ineffective executive the resultant damage can cripple or even kill an organization’s prospects.  Therefore, any gain in executive productivity realized from executive coaching is likely to have an extensive impact on the overall organization.”

Selecting a Coach 

If you have decided to hire a coach for your employee, the next step is selecting the coach.  Selecting the right coach for your employee is critical to the success of the coaching effort.  Trust is the most important factor in a coaching relationship.  If your employee does not trust the coach you have selected, a symbiotic relationship cannot occur and no progress can be made.  That is why it is advisable, if possible, to have the employee involved from the beginning in the selection process. 

Here are some criteria to consider before selecting a coach:

	Degree of trust.  The employee must trust the coach.  Any professional coach should keep all session information confidential.  This principle in and of itself should inspire a degree of trust.  However, sometimes personality differences can prevent this relationship from becoming open, honest two-way communication, which can hinder the relationship.  If your employee tells you he or she is not comfortable with the coach, this is important information and should not be discounted.
	Experience in the field of coaching.  Ask to see references and testimonials.  Ensure the coaches’ experience extends beyond a few years.   Certification is actually a very controversial topic in the coaching industry, and should never be considered to replace experience.
	Experience in your particular industry.  This criterion is optional, and should mostly be considered in cases where a coach is brought in to help with a specific technical problem or situation.  Coaches that specialize by industry tend to come with a heftier price tag.
	Cost.  Remember you get what you pay for.  There is a reason why some coaches have fees way below the industry average, and it often relates to their experience level or past successes.  It is worth the investment to hire a coach that falls along the industry average or higher.
	Use of a Systematic Approach.  Almost any coach you interview is going to have a different method for coaching.  The important part is ensuring they are using a systematic approach in the coaching process.  This process should include an initial assessment.  If an assessment is not part of the coach’s process, the coach should be able to produce a good reason why this is not included.  (Here is Cornelius & Associates’ Standard One-on-One Coaching Methodology for you to review as a sample)

The coaching process can be intense and expensive.  But, the improvement seen in an employee whose potential outshined their challenges makes the coaching effort worthwhile. 

Call 800.200.1104 or email info@corneliusassoc.com today to find out how Cornelius & Associates' coaching services can help your organization!

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