by Site Staff
March 27, 2006
As any editor could tell you, certain industries have issues that come and go, rise and fall. Different industries also have more evergreen issues: those topics that are so fundamental to the language and core to the nature that they never change, or never change much.
Learning and development, of course, isn’t much different. Issues do tend to stay around longer. Given education’s need to serve new and diverse populations continually, a good solution never really goes out of style, even in the face of technological change. It adapts more than it changes, like any true survivor. The brick-and-mortar classroom is the prime example here, a traditional delivery method that’s reaching new heights through online approaches.
Another evergreen issue, and the one I’m thinking about this month, is coaching. I’m not talking Knute Rockne’s method of winning one for the Gipper. As a means of professional and personal development, coaching is a tool just a hair younger than education itself. Mentors were an important part of early education and still are. Even at the secondary school level, peer coaches and faculty mentors work with students to ensure they make the most of educational opportunities.
Are you coaching? Are you being coached? I hope the answer is yes to both.
I’ve recently reviewed a fascinating study on leadership coaching, prepared by the Institute of Executive Development and Marshall Goldsmith Partners. (Marshall, as you might know, is one of the acknowledged leaders of executive coaching, a subject he’s sure to address when he keynotes the Fall 2006 CLO Symposium this October.)
Let me share some of the numbers with you to see how you fit into the bigger picture of this ongoing learning effort:
- Only 35 percent of respondents reported little to no coaching for their organization’s leaders.
- For 42 percent of respondents, executive coaches work as an extension of the leadership development team. Coaching is fairly evenly split among four levels of organizational leaders: C-level executives, vice presidents, directors and managers.
- Interestingly, coaching is used both proactively and in response to existing problems. At 46 percent of respondent companies, coaching is used to change behaviors. Most coaches, 63 percent, come from outside the organization.
- Coaching is expected to grow: 43 percent reported increases in coaching budgets in the past three years, but 70 percent expect increases in the next three years.
- The CLO isn’t always getting stuck with the bill. In the report, 54 percent reported that business units cover the costs, while 42 percent of learning departments pick up the tab.
OK, coaching is big and getting bigger. The question is, how well does it work as an organizational learning tool? Survey respondents overwhelmingly credited coaching, with 82 percent believing it improves individual performance and 42 percent citing improved organizational performance. Those are largely anecdotal numbers though—46 percent of respondents said they don’t try to determine the value of coaching, but still believe it adds value. Most coaching seems to be monitored in a less-than-regimental way, with a majority of learning leaders or business heads relying on feedback from either the participant or his or her manager.
Let me ask again: Are you coaching? Are you being coached? I’m sure the answers will change from reader to reader, company to company, culture to culture. It’s my hope, though, that the chief learning officer—yes, you—is actively involved in raising the bar for coaching and raising the expectation level from it. Education is about continually finding new solutions, new avenues, new hopes. Coaching is about guiding performance, sharpening skills, meeting current and future needs. The connection is obvious.
Norm Kamikow
Editor in Chief
norm@CLOmedia.com