Refreshing evaluation of coaching
Organisations want to know that their investment in coaching has paid off. It was very refreshing, then, when I asked the sponsor of a recent coaching programme what he thought the return on investment was to the business. His reply…she (the coachee) had invested in her future at the company, allowing her to be authentic, balancing her strong convictions with an adult way of conducting herself. We could have put numbers on it – particularly as she said she had saved an estimated 6 weeks of decision-making by coming to a solution much earlier than she might have done. Six weeks of her salary, 6 weeks of her team members salaries, perhaps other savings; as they could all get on to the next decision that needed to be made. But it was enough to say that the future looked brighter as a result of coaching.
Up-front evaluation of coaching
New organisational clients do often want to know what difference coaching will make, so that they have a good business case for investing. I don’t blame them. There are many studies, citing the results of coaching, including:
- “Coaching has a 2x greater impact on business results (productivity, engagement, etc.) vs. paying for performance.” Bersin and Associates
- “Training alone gives 20% change in behaviour, while training plus coaching leads to an 88% change in behaviour.” Oliverso and Bane
- One study asked coachees for a conservative estimate of the financial benefits gained from coaching. Average response was a gain of $100,000, with 28% indicating over $500,000. Lore Research
- Several ROI studies (Manchester, MetrixGlobal, DDI/AstraZeneca, Triad Performance) across coaching programs in several companies show returns of 5-6 times cost as a result of increased capability, teaming and performance.
- Executive coaching is more highly rated as a form of senior leadership development than business school programmes by a significant margin. Ridler Report
These are big studies (generally) with big budgets. I know that some big organisations who invest heavily in coaching are also able to measure Return on Expectations and Return on Investment. As independent coaches, we don’t necessarily have the funds to do our own evaluative studies at this scale. But we can ask questions – that’s our forte afterall. We get more qualitative answers than quantitiave, but the stories these answers tell say so much.
Questions for the evaluation of coaching
Questions that are resonating for me in this area are:
- Looking back on your original goals, what you achieved as a result of coaching?
- What else have you achieved as a result of coaching that was unanticipated?
- What is the impact of this coaching?
- What has changed as a result of this coaching?
- What is different now?
ROI evaluation of coaching
If an organisation is really keen on ROI, then I would ask at the beginning, in the three-way contract, “what is the financial payback you would expect from this coaching, and how will you measure that?” That makes it much easier at the end to use the companies own metrics of success. But otherwise, I am vearing towards narrative evaluation.
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts. Do share them to help me and others to move our thinking forward.
