Lisa Wynn - Master Certified Coach, Coach Mentor & Agent of Change

How to utilise coaching skills training to support managers in being better managers:

It is a complex question that requires tailoring to the organizational setting, but some of our key pointers are:

1. Start with the end in mind
2. Know how to recognise success
3. Speak to your managers
4. Assure workplace application is included in the training
5. Build in personal development to the training programmes

Why “Manager as Coach” programmes can cause problems:

Having done a fair bit of trouble shooting with companies on this topic, here are the top reasons why Manager as Coach Programmes seem not to deliver value:

1. Lack of measurement
2. Lack of proper funding
3. Lack of real strategic purpose
4. Lack of workplace application and support
5. Lack of “walking the talk”

Manager as Coach - time to rethink?

It’s a nice idea – managers who consistently coach their teams day in and day out; ever ready with a lovely open question and endlessly patient, managing never to leap in and tell their team member what to do.

We know that individuals tend to leave companies because of their manager rather than because of the company itself – so it makes sense to have these super managers coaching away and helping to retain your organizational talent.

And yet, strangely enough, we often hear from companies who have spent a lot of time and money training their managers as coaches only to find out that there is no measurable effect despite a large financial investment.

Many of these companies are getting the feedback that their staff does not actually feel they are being coached. Their experience of being within that manager’s team has not noticeably improved.

In fact, some of these organizations have told us that their managers’ 360 results have actually diminished as a result of their coach training – they are perceived as being weaker; finding it more difficult to make decisions and lacking leadership …

So, should we all stop running and delivering “Manager as Coach” type programmes then? Yes. I would say so and tomorrow, I'll look at 5 common problems "Manager as Coach" programmes can cause. 

Using our coaching skills to evaluate ROI

Last week, I came across an interesting article about evaluating the effectiveness of coaching  by Elouise Leonard-Cross over at www.TrainingZone.co.uk.  Training Zone is a great site for corporate training professionals, which just like this blog, allows you to interact with other professionals by leaving your comments.  Here's the comment I left:

"I have found that giving the client the responsibility for knowing what success would mean to them and how they will evaluate that can be a great deal more powerful than offering any kind of set evaluation approach.

• How will they know that their investment in coaching was a good one?
• How will they recognise it when it happens?
• And how should the coaching programme be set up to best meet these requirements?
• What are the check in processes along the way?
• How will they know they are on track?

The other vital piece of questioning around evaluation is about sustainability because that often challenges the organisation to shift as well as the few people going through the coaching programme. Coaching is a great way to waste money if the organisation is not prepared to put in place the changes that would support an ROI!

It may well sound like a cop out in terms of rigorous ROI measurement but asking for a strong set of desired outcomes and how the client will recognise those can I believe be a powerful and cost effective way of evaluating coaching."

What do you think? How do you measure coaching ROI - as a coach and/or a 'coachee'? To leave your comments, simply click on the 'Comments' link below this post and fill out the form provided.

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