Just got back from presenting at the annual Conference Board's Executive Coaching conference. Interesting to observe the wide range of topics and note who was drawn to what. There were once again sessions focused on calculating ROI designed to defend our value to leaders who I assume have never been coached. Early studies based on guesstimates by the coachee of the value of coaching averaged an ROI of 600% and were actually ratcheted down by the researchers (Manchester Group) before publishing because the numbers seemed unbelievable. I watched well-intentioned HR leaders searching for the right approach to justify what they intuitively know will bring value to their organizations. I spoke with a few of them on break and asked if they had asked their leaders which metrics would matter to them. They hadn't.
I spoke with some others who have, like we do, a fairly mature coaching program in place. The tone of our conversation was very different. We spoke about the value to our leaders during times of chaos to have time to reflect via coaching, the value of making mindful decisions during times of ambiguity guided by a coach's questions and the value of having a coach who cares truly listen. We noted that not one of the people we've coached asked for ROI data.
It's my dream that we will reach a tipping point in terms of numbers of people coached so that the futile effort to quantify the quality of an experience will simply fade away.
