Would you Benefit from Having An Executive Coach?
Glen Raiger
CEO, Sovren Group, Inc., Growth and Value Creation Specialist, Executive Coach and Advisor. Helping CEO's and Business Owners, maximize growth and the value of their businesses positioning for a potential future exit.
The Bottom-Line Value of Executive Coaching
Summary: Return on investment of Executive Coaching is 570 percent
Fortune magazine recently reported the results of a poll of executives and upper level managers who had six to twelve months of coaching with a Masters or Doctoral level executive coach (Fortune 2/18).
The executives were asked to give a “conservative estimate of the monetary payoff from the coaching you received”. The survey demonstrated that the recipients valued the executive coaching at six times the cost that their company paid for the service. In other words, a nine-month, $18,000 executive coaching program investment for a VP, was given a rating of being worth six times that -- $108,000. Not a bad ROI at all.
Sixty percent of the executives in the study were ages 40-49, half held positions of vice president or higher, and a third earned more than $200,000 per year. Seventy-seven percent of the executives reported improved working relationships with their direct reports, 71% with supervisors, and 63% with peers. The executives also cited a marked increase in job satisfaction (61%) and in organizational commitment (44%).
What do coaches do that brings such dramatic value to you? You and your coach first forge a partnership built around your most important goals. Then your coach helps you identify your strengths and potential blindspots – ideally aided by the use of assessment tools. Next your coach helps you leverage your strengths, grow skills and manage any weaknesses in areas of strategic importance in your career. Your coach helps you be tenacious and undistracted while moving ahead on your most important goals. Finally your coach helps you stay accountable to yourself in following through on your developmental commitments, while at the same time providing support, encouragement and celebrating with you your successes.
What do you look for in a competent executive coach? Recent studies suggest the importance of advanced training such as a Masters or Ph.D., post-graduate certification in executive coaching, business experience, integrity, high emotional intelligence, comfort relating to top management, political savvy, organizational awareness, flexibility and creativity, the ability to think on one’s feet, and also the ability to give honest, straight forward feedback.
Examples Of The Roles That Coaches Play
Experience: Coaches who have also been entrepreneur's and CEO's with a small to mid size companies who were involved in scaling and growing then selling those businesses brings knowledge to help avoid blind spot errors. A true mentor coaching relationship.
Listening: Sometimes you need a sounding board for your ideas or aggravations. The experience allows them to have both empathy and be a source of mirroring and reflection.
Competency Building: An executive coach helps you build a personalized development plan based on your career goals -- and your organization’s business needs
Accountability: Your coach helps hold you accountable for your action plans
Encouragement: You might occasionally get discouraged – your coach will know how to keep you motivated
Celebration: As you have breakthrough experiences your coach can help you recognize your achievement and celebrate your successes