Who is Accountable in Executive Coaching?
By Bernard Chanliau, Saturday 25 October, 2008
Measuring the Effectiveness of Executive Coaching and the Importance of the Triangular Relationship in Contracting Measurement
Margaret McHale, MBA student, conducted a primary research project as part of her thesis - Executive Coaching as an Intervention Tool, from the Coachee's Perspective - with the help of Xenergie Consulting Ltd, a long-established executive coaching practice predominantly operating in Ireland and UK.
The overall aim and objective of this dissertation was to evaluate Executive Coaching as an intervention tool, from the coachee's perspective. In this article, we mainly explore one of the most profound emergences from the survey which concerns the evaluative process of executive coaching and the extent to which the benefits of coaching are measured and integrated into business change through the stages of the executive coaching assignment.
Who was surveyed?
The survey was sent, in Spring 2008, to in excess of 60 executive coachees who had experienced executive coaching in the last three years with Xenergie. The response rate was 45% and conducted using electronic - based questionnaires.
The segmentation of the survey base fitted with the definition of executive coaching "a helping relationship formed between a client who has managerial authority and responsibility in an organisation and a consultant who uses a wide variety of behaviour techniques and methods to assist the client to achieve a mutually identified set of goals. To improve his or her professional performance and personal satisfaction and consequently to improve the effectiveness of the client's organisation within a defined coaching agreement" (Kilburg 2000).
Of the survey participants, 93% reported having their first executive coaching experience with 82% aged >36years and 65% of the respondents were entrepreneurs, senior managers, managing directors or CEO's with 48% of respondents having an executive coaching contract duration > 7 months with Xenergie. This correlated with the average length of time per engagement - 9 months (Conference Board 2008)
How did the coachee arrive in executive coaching?
According to the survey, 48% were recommended to coaching by their manager or included in a leadership development curriculum and 52% engaged through self-motivation and recommendation by colleagues or external contacts. This is not unusual, according to Xenergie Consulting, "Although an increasing number of organisations are beginning to actively experience coaching as a method of behavioural and cultural transformation, it's application is still much misunderstood, and therefore in its infancy in Ireland. As a result, we find that many senior managers come to us from their own initiative, as a channel to enhance their coping strategies, to innovate and manage their careers/leadership roles more effectively."
Value from the Eye of the Coachees
71% of the respondents felt that executive Coaching had enhanced their performance and productivity with 62% unable to define or measure the improvements and only 33% experienced evaluation.
This confirms recent coaching surveys where only 12% of HR professionals have a formal process to measure their return on investment (Sherpa 2008) and only a minority assess the impact of their coaching interventions (McDermott et al. 2007). Though billions of dollars are spent on training, only a few percentage of this amount is actually measured using the Kirkpatrick model; that is all five levels of the model. And obviously this applies to coaching, as 57% of organisations (AMA 2008) use coaching within an integrated part of a training or leadership development programme.
How to Measure?
Within the coaching arena, there doesn't appear to be a universal methodology for evaluating coaching benefits
(Leedham, 2005) or how to apply Kirkpatrick's four levels of evaluation to coaching and how to assess the fifth level - the return on investment. According to our experience at Xenergie Consulting, we adopt the approach that this depends on, and should be defined by, the triangular relationship created at the beginning of the assignment between coach, coachee and organisational sponsor. In this triangular relationship, meaning and definition should be applied to the reporting structure, feedback mechanism, strategic need of the business, confidentiality....etc and all these factors clearly articulated between the parties and a process of meaningful evaluation reached.Of the existing coaching evaluation methods , Xenergie will often use methods based purely on the perception of the recipient and coach (Level 1 - Reaction, Level 2 - Learning, Kirkpatrick) during the last coaching session which is usually dedicated to the coaching evaluation. Sometimes a second level of evaluation (L2) is added through interviews/ratings completed by others during and after coaching.
So what's missing may you ask? What is usually missing are measures of tangible evidence of behavioural changes (Level 3 - Behaviour) brought on by coaching. "In our view, effective coaching is coaching that creates the right behavioural changes that lead to improvement in the client's ability to impact bottom-line business results" (T Bacon, Lore 2003).
Xenergie sometimes re-administer 360-degree surveys to measure an assignment post engagements in a more exacting and measurable form. However, this is seldom the case due to lack of support, time/resources from the sponsoring stakeholders - measurement is seen as an additional expense and time commitment from the sponsor that they prefer to forgo. As we have understood, it takes time to measure things - both from coach, sponsor and coachee - and time always appears to be at a minimum. Also, there is an enduring perception that measuring behaviour is too complex and therefore easier to dismiss or make assumptions. And the lack of evidence on the ROI from executive coaching perpetuates as does the failure to tangibly and usefully incorporate coaching as a "must-have" into business improvement programmes such as LEAN and Six Sigma into which millions of Euro are invested each year by corporate Ireland.
Coaching - a Key to unlocking LEAN and Six Sigma Success
According to Strebel 1996, over 70% of corporate engineering attempts fail due to insufficient attention to the need for transforming behaviour. Coaching is one of the few organised means of reaching the third level of learning - the level at which behavioural transformation occurs (as opposed to training which usually provides lip service to transformational behaviour change resting at Level 1 - cognitive learning resulting in no actual behavioural transformation). I believe, therefore, that it is the key to unlocking this frightening statistic of failed corporate reengineering - but in order to apply it to effect, we have a collective responsibility and accountability as coaches and sponsoring organisations to give attention to the measurability of coaching.
Considering the results of this survey, one can ask "where is the responsibility to insist on making time/placing importance on measurement?" - with the executive coach or the stakeholders? One cannot measure without the other's cooperation - and I raise the nature and accountability of the triangular relationship as being critical. If you believe that "what gets measured, gets done" like me, then the significant correlations between measurement and coaching success shouldn't be a surprise and I'm sure you will agree that true accountability at all three levels is vital.
Why bother to Measure?
Measurement in coaching is critical for many reasons. As a group of practitioners, we coaches need to more clearly define the changes we are capable of helping our clients to make. This will lay the groundwork for consumers to clearly understand what they can and can't get from coaching, and conversely to realize exactly how much value they can gain from coaching.
"Executive coaching affects retention, job satisfaction, and individual and team productivity at the most senior levels of an organization. Buyers need to see in real dollar terms how big the payoff can be for what may seem like an expensive, individual investment. Finally, coaches need evidence to determine when to sell more, and buyers need evidence to determine when to buy more services following a successful coaching engagement. The only way to accomplish all of these goals is for coaches and buyers to get serious about measuring their work" (OD Practitioner 2005)
On the other hand, McHale's research aims from the client perspective so that the process of evaluation was self-directed rather than coach/sponsor-directed and I strongly believe the evaluation of coaching should be designed into the process from the beginning when the stakeholders are co-creating the triangular coaching alliance to better set performance expectations and open up new learning opportunities for making coaching more effective while the coaching is being conducted.
"As the coaching industry matures, we believe identifying how various organisations collect and use coaching metrics will become an increasingly important activity in the future" (AMA 2008 - Coaching a Global Study of Successful Practices).
Benefits Elicited through Coaching
The survey also highlighted the following Benefits of Executive Coaching: self-confidence, changing behaviours with respect to honesty, learning to prioritise, plan and delegate more effectively, dealing more effectively with stress, enhanced leadership skills, more assertiveness and the following Behavioural changes: Increase in self confidence, improved communication skills, building stronger relationships, time management, deeper understanding of behaviours and patterns, emotional intelligence and working with teams "I began to lead...like a true leader...I had to tackle the fear of doing this and Xenergie gave me the confidence and the steps I needed to take in order to move into this leadership space....and it worked." (McHale 2008 Anonymous respondent)
In regards to Performance and Productivity respondents mentioned: Peer reviewed confirmed performance enhancement, improved communication skills, enhanced relationships with peers and subordinates, improved work-life balance, motivational skills, improved organisational skills, enhanced self-awareness, reflection and planning, here are some additional anonymous comments by participants:
- "Helped me to understand in a more meaningful way the value of emotional intelligence and its value in managing working relationships at peer level and especially with superior"
- "Teams attitude to change has improved. This has improved morale...which has led to a greater focus on delivering to the customers. Customers have commented on how happier the team seems to be...and the quality of their output has improved"
- "Enhancement has taken the form of being able to reflect about strategic and planning approaches with the notion that it's "ok" to take the time to do this."
- "I engage in less procrastination. I cannot offer an objective measure of this improvement. I know I that I feel less weighted down by competing demands of tasks and time as I allow myself to fully focus on present time activities and recognise, respond to and manage my energy more effectively"
Much of the coaching literature supports these findings. That is, coaching "tends to have the biggest positive impact on micro-level outcomes such as developing future leaders and improving leadership behaviours and individual employee's performance" (McDermott et al. 2007).
As we can see from the above we may ponder on the ROI method incorporating only left-brain functioning analysis, which is linear and traditional, and take right-brain activities into account also because coaching is an action learning process which is highly experiential.
The challenge is to evaluate and appreciate all facets of our clients - not just the "easy", measurable bits.
The findings showed that 92% of respondents would recommend executive coaching to a colleague or subordinate and 75% were happy with their experience of executive coaching with Xenergie.
More information can be obtained from this ground-breaking research from bernard.chanliau@xenergie.com, mobile: 086 104 38 05.
References:
Margaret McHale - An Evaluation of Executive Coaching as an Intervention Tool from the Coachee's Perspective - MBA 2008 WIT
OD Practitioner | VOL. 37 | NO. 2 | 2005
Sherpa Coaching (2008) - The 2008 Sherpa executive coaching survey
McDermott, M., Levenson, A., & Newton, S. (2007) - What Coaching can and cannot do for your organisation. HR Planning, 30-37.
American Management Association - Coaching A Global Study of Successful Practices (2008)
Measuring the Effectiveness of executive Coaching - Terry R. Bacon Lore International Institute (2003)
Kilburg, R. (2000). Executive Coaching: Developing managerial wisdom in a world of chaos. American Psychological Association
Leedham, M. (2005). The coaching scoreboard: A holistic approach to evaluating the benefits of business coaching. The journal of Evidence based Coaching and Mentoring 30-44.
The Conference Board - The 2008 Executive Coaching Fee Survey
