Coaching often misses the mark. There are many reasons why this happens. For example, it can be because the person receiving coaching doesn’t appreciate or fully buy into the idea that they are the one needing to do the hard work of thinking – they are the thinker in the coaching process. However, many times it’s because coaching relationships are no longer set up for success as well as they used to be. My theory—backed up by twenty plus years of experience as a coach—is that organisations tend to want the benefits of coaching without the up-front investment in strategic screening for coaching readiness.

This is not the fault of the coach, nor the fault of the thinker.

It’s down to the coaching custodian.  That is, the person who is responsible for coaching in an organisation.  That may be the:

• owner of all things coaching (full time, part-time, some of the time)
• holder of the coaching budget
• sponsor of the coaching
• coach procurer
• coaching platform/associate organisation

If you hold one of these roles, the return on investment and expectations of the coaching is in your hands.  That’s quite a responsibility and it requires more than a cursory introduction to a coach in your coaching pool.

Here’s how you can make the investment pay higher dividends:

1. Establish the coaching context for your organisation

What is the strategic intention (focus and purpose) of this coaching and how will it meet organisational needs?

For example, the focus might be maternity/paternity return to work, first 100 days in a new lateral role, emerging leader, increased scope and scale, parental coaching, executive coaching, leadership coaching, retirement coaching, wellbeing, enhancement of diversity and inclusion, high potentials.  The purpose might be business-driven, individual development needs driven, goal-led, or programme-led.  What is it that your organisation needs?

Include this in the coaching brief that you send to the coach.  And keep your coaching pool in the loop about business changes that may have an impact on the employees for whom you provide coaching.

2. Don’t outsource the vetting of your coaching pool to the coaching bodies

Yes, they will screen for coaching competence through their credentialing processes, but are these coaches a good fit for your organisational culture and for the purpose and type of coaching you wish to invest in to meet the business needs?

3. Screen for coaching readiness

Before any member of your staff embarks on a coaching journey, you must ensure they are ready for the process.  Ask the following questions:

• Is coaching the best intervention for the presenting need?

Don’t throw coaching at everything.  For example, might training be a better fit for a newly promoted team lead who was a high performing individual contributor but has never led a team before?  Or might the line manager be trying to outsource to someone else to give the difficult feedback that they have shied away from giving to the individual. Perhaps it’s the line manager who needs coaching. There are a multitude of other interventions that may be a better fit and you’ll only figure this out by having conversations with the stakeholders involved.

• Does the person receiving coaching understand what they are signing up for and are they willing to do the hard work of thinking for themselves? And changing?  

Just like signing up at a gym and expecting to get fit without actually using the gym equipment, coaching is more than just agreeing to coaching.   This is a big commitment on their part.  They can’t just show up and hope that everything will get better for them.  Your role is to brief them on what coaching is and is not and how to make the most of it.  Yes, the coach will do this too, but people need to hear things more than once for it to sink in; and if they are not motivated, there is no point wasting their salaried time or the coach’s time by putting them forward for a chemistry meeting if they don’t want coaching in the first place.

•  Is the organisation supportive of change?

Sometimes, a line manager says they want a person to step up, but they do nothing to support and challenge that on a daily basis.  The line manager is with the person more often than the coach is and must play their part, by for example, removing systemic barriers to change, providing necessary resources, furnishing introductions to people who can help, giving feedback about the changes they are seeing to encourage continued progress.

• Is the timing right, for the individual and for the organisation?

Coaching in the “eye of the storm” can be very timely to support the individual to thrive in times of change rather than being knocked for six, but it can also be overwhelming.  How does the individual feel about the timing for them?  It must be their choice.  Equally, coaching ahead of structural changes in the organisation can help the individual to work with the unknown, but if you know something that they don’t about what is coming, think carefully about whether this is the best time to invest.

4. Match with one coach at a time for a compatibility call

Choice is important for the thinker, but they don’t always have the tools to discern who will be the best fit coach for them.  You will know the coaching pool better than them and will know which of the coaches is likely to stretch the individual out of their comfort zone just enough to create a shift, but not so much as to cause stress.  So, match them with the coach who you think will offer just enough challenge and let the thinker know that they can ask for another match if they discern for themselves that:

• the style of support will not optimise the individual’s learning style
• the amount or style of challenge feels too stretching or not stretching enough
• there are conflicts of interest that you could not have foreseen

This cuts down on unconscious bias in the matching process, so if you are serious about diversity, inclusion and equity, it’s important to match with that in mind.

5. Brief the coach so that they have choice about whether to go ahead with a compatibility call

Given all the work you put into screening, be sure to share that with all stakeholders for transparency.  In particular, give the coach the benefit of all of your good work so that the compatibility call can be focused.

6. Do expect the coaches to have regular supervision – and ensure you learn from them

Given that the coaches will likely choose their own supervisors and work in a silo in your organisation, don’t forget to harvest the systemic learning across the work that they are doing for you.  What is coming up time and time again that individuals cannot resolve in one-to-one coaching?  For example, is there a bullying problem that keeps showing up?  Are minorities finding it hard to make progress due to systemic barriers that need to be addressed by the whole organisation?  What is the temperature gauge around potential burnout?

Conclusion

This is a big ask for those of you who have been tapped on the shoulder to add this to your burgeoning to-do list.  But ensuring that coaching is a success within the organisation is not just another transaction to be ticked off the list, it’s a strategic imperative to get this right. You are the major custodian of results here, the protector of business spend and the talent multiplier.  The choices you make will have an impact – so make them wisely.