Contracting within the business coaching relationship - a guide and a cautionary tale!
In this white paper we explore the limited research available on contracting - the setting up, use and monitoring of the business coaching relationship. We do not try to develop a standard coaching contract as that would be too constraining for the majority of business coaches- each contract must be customized to the client's requirements. Instead we provide a list of factors that should be considered in developing an effective contact.
The Wild West of executive coaching.
Annual spending on executive coaching in the United States is estimated at 1 billion dollars. Yet information about coaching's effectiveness is scarce and unreliable. No one has yet demonstrated conclusively what qualifies an executive coach or what makes one approach to executive coaching better than another. Barriers to entry are nonexistent--many executive coaches know little about business, and some know little about coaching. The coaching certifications offered by various self-appointed bodies are difficult to assess, and methods of measuring return on investment are questionable. But strategic coaching can provide critical help both to individuals and to organizations. In this article, Stratford Sherman, a senior vice president of Executive Coaching Network, and Alyssa Freas, the founder and CEO, explore the popularity of executive coaching and investigate ways to make the most of the experience. They argue that coaching is inevitably a triangular relationship between the client, the "coachee," and the coach. Its purpose is to produce behavioral change and growth in the coachee for the economic benefit of the client. The best way to maximize the likelihood of good results is to qualify all the people involved. Even so, many triangular relationships continue to generate conflict among all three parties. At the most basic level, coaches serve as suppliers of candor, providing leaders with the objective feedback they need to nourish their growth. Coaching gets executives to slow down, gain awareness, and notice the effects of their words and actions. On a larger scale, the best coaching fosters cultural change for the benefit of the entire organization. It provides a disciplined way for businesses to deepen relationships with their most valued employees while also increasing their effectiveness.
The coach-coachee relationship in executive coaching: A field study
Numerous authors have suggested that the working relationship between coach and coachee constitutes an essential condition to the success of executive coaching. This study empirically investigated the links between the coach–coachee relationship and the success of a coaching intervention in an organizational setting. Data were collected from two samples: 73 managers who received executive coaching for a period of eight months and 24 coaches. Results from 31 coach–coachee dyads were analyzed. Results indicate that the coach–coachee relationship plays a mediating role between the coaching received and development of the coachees’ self-efficacy. Findings also show four significant correlates to the coach–coachee relationship: the coach’s selfefficacy with regard to facilitating learning and results, the coachee’s motivation to transfer, his or her perception of supervisor support, and the number of coaching sessions received.