BUSINESS COACHING

Business coaching defined

At first glance, Business coaching appears to be similar to one-to-one management consultancy. However, the main difference between business coaching and management consultancy or consulting, is that business coaching tends to have a broader and more open frame of reference because it can potentially cover a wide range of subject areas and not be restricted to a particular area of focus.

The evaluation of business coaching

The aims of a business coach typically includes:

• Helping you to reflect on your personal strengths and look at these in the context of what you want to achieve on an overall basis
• Helping you to clarify the most important goals and aims for you and your wider enterprise
• Helping you to explore different forward strategic options and make decisions about what is
• your preferred option and how best to implement it
• Enabling you to make business decisions within a context of what is truly important

This is why the RESULTS Coaching™ model is such a powerful framework for the business coaching relationship and helps both the coach and the coachee to evaluate success at every stage of the process.

Values to the leadership function

In terms of adding value to a particular leader or the overall leadership function in an enterprise, an effective business consultant should:

• Assist leaders in helping to focus strictly on business aims, objectives and targets and how to achieve them,
• Assist leaders n analysing how current business processes and systems are operating and providing advice or recommendations as to what you should do to improve business efficiency or effectiveness  
• Work “hand-in-glove” with leaders to bring about positive change projects (minor and major) including ensuring that they are fit-for-purpose” and achieve tangible gains

Coaching can be the most significant component of a leader’s role. Done well it therefore can make a substantial contribution to leadership success.

The contribution of coaching to management activities

Business coaching should always operate as a partnership that is established between a professional business coach and a business manager/leader, team, or group with the goal of business performance improvement at the people, process, and systems levels.

An effective  Business Coach will always seek to strengthen the management capability of an individual or group’s leadership qualities. This will include helping to build more collaborative relationships, making better strategic plans and decisions, communicating more effectively and solving problems and challenges more creatively.

 

The overall cost to benefit - about the fees and values.

Manchester Inc., a research firm in the US released a recent study which aims to quantify the business impact of executive coaching. The study includes data on executive behaviour change, organisational improvements achieved, and the return on investment (ROI) from customised, comprehensive executive coaching programs.

The study included 100 executives, mostly from large organisations (Fortune 1000 companies), who received coaching. Participating companies realized improvements in productivity, quality, organisational strength, customer service, and shareholder value. They received fewer customer complaints, and were more likely to retain executives who had been coached. In addition, a company's investment in providing coaching to its executives realised an average return on investment (ROI) of almost six times the cost of the coaching.

Among the results of the study:

The coaching programs delivered an average return on investment of 5.7 times the initial investment in a typical executive coaching assignment -- or a return of more than $100,000 -- according to executives who estimated the monetary value of the results achieved through coaching.

• Productivity (reported by 53% of executives)  
• Quality (48%)  
• Organizational strength (48%)  
• Customer service (39%)  
• Reducing customer complaints (34%)  
• Retaining executives who received coaching (32%)  
• Cost reductions (23%)  
• Bottom-line profitability (22%)  
• Other benefits to executives who received coaching were improved:
• Working relationships with direct reports (reported by 77% of executives)  
• Working relationships with immediate supervisors (71%)  
• Teamwork (67%)  
• Working relationships with peers (63%)  
• Job satisfaction (61%)  
• Conflict reduction (52%)  
• Organisational commitment (44%)  
• Working relationships with clients (37%)  

The bottom line. Even though the up-front costs can be appear quite high, the tangible benefits are widespread and significant at many levels. Of course, at Warner Results Coaching we always seek to present the potential investment and the likely return. In other words, we see it to be important to offer a tangible ROI from our efforts on a client’s behalf. In doing this, similar to the Manchester study results, we have been able to show returns in the range of 150%-500% on the investment made with us, with 200%-300% being the average.

 

The particular benefits of coaching over consulting
Both consulting and coaching involve the use of a skilled, trained professional to assist a client in achieving goals, but each entity is considered a different form of support.

Coaching involves a client who wants to perform at a higher level (both personally and for the organisation of which they are a part, as a whole). Typically a coach works one-on-one with a client.

Consulting usually involves services that are provided for a specific issue, challenge or subject area. This might be concerned with teamwork, conflict, communication or change for example. A consultant will typically provide an analysis and some recommendations for the improvement of a certain process and work with either one individual within an organisation or with a particular group of people.

A consultant will usually provide a suggested solution for the client, such as exactly which forward path to take. The coach, on the other hand, will seek to ask insightful questions so that the client can arrive a decision that is right for him or her.

There are many more differences between a consultant and a coach. These include:

• Consulting focuses on problem solving, strategies, action plans, and accomplishing very specific personal or organisational goals. Coaching focuses on learning through action while using the process of self-discovery to fulfill a given set of goals
• The consultant is often an expert and brings the knowledge to the situation that can make a significant difference in the coachee or client’s failure or success. The coach guides the coachee/client in a journey of self-discovery through the use of insightful questions.
• Consultants often ask a client “why” questions. Coaches tend to focus on “how” questions

Business coaching in different cultures (UK, USA and Europe)

Culture: “A system of learned beliefs and behaviours that individuals or groups of people share".

To be an effective coach, especially when coaching people in different places around the world or working with clients from different countries, it is extremely important to have an understanding and acceptance of other cultures. This is simply because different people with different cultures often have very different ways of dealing with situations.

To have a better grasp of coaching across different cultures, there are three key factors that need to be kept in mind:

• Cultural Adaptation
  Cultural “mal-adaptation” occurs when a coach incorrectly compares his or her thinking or past actions to explain the actions and behaviours of a person from a different culture. What might be acceptable to one culture might be offensive to another culture. If you are self-referencing, it will lead to wrong decisions which might be detrimental to the coaching relationship.
• Understand the relationship between culture and managerial skills
  Culture often defines what behaviour is acceptable and what is unacceptable.  An individual’s  management style may be significantly drawn from the culture of the country. Coaches are therefore well-served to immerse themselves in the cultures of their clients.
• Using cultural knowledge to enhance the coaching relationship
  In order to know the different needs of each client a coach must first increase or enhance his or her knowledge about the overall culture of the country in which the coaching is to take place. Having increased knowledge of the other country’s culture will help to build trust and a stronger long-term relationship.

Always remember, the most important thing in managing different cultures is to have an open mind. This is best brought about by always being willing to listen and learn, no matter where in the world you may be.