258 THECOACHINGALMANAC
- Why do you choose coaching over other methods?
The responses in rank order:
- Customized application
- Flexibility/timeliness
- Outside perspective/objectivity
- Personal pr ivacy
- Subject expertise
- Expense
- Minimizing company liability
Analysis and Discussion:It is not surprising that survey respon-
dents rated expense low, since coaching is more costly than other
methods. There is an obvious and increasing clarity expressed by our
analysts that coaching is a preferred developmental method because
an organization can customize a specific intervention with explicitly
designed behavioral objectives.
- How do you characterize the effectiveness of past coaching interven-
tions at your organization?
Seventy-five percent of survey respondents rate the effectiveness of
coaching as a 3 or better on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being very effective
and 1 not effective. Only 15 percent of respondents rate coaching as a
1 or a 2.
Analysis and Discussion:Unfortunately, 15.8 percent rate past
coaching interventions not at all effective or hardly at all effective.
The good news is that the majority consider it to be somewhat effec-
tive or very effective. We interpret this data to indicate that overall
there is high degree of satisfaction with past coaching interventions
with room for improvement.
- How many years has your organization been using internal coaches?
Of the total group, 9 percent indicated that they had been using
internal coaching for less than 2 years; fewer than 2 percent for less
than 1 year, while 55 percent of respondents have been using coach-
ing for between 3 and 20 years.
Analysis and Discussion:It’s clear that internal coaches have been
in place for many years in most organizations. In fact, the majority of
organizations in our survey indicate that coaching has been institu-
tionalized in their organization. We also interpret from our data that a
certain percentage—perhaps as high 33 percent—have not institu-
tionalized an internal coaching process.