Any time a business invests money in executive and/or employee development, it is critical to have some standards of measurement in place to judge whether or not the coaching process is successful. Some of these measurements will be objective, while others will be more subjective, but combined, they should clearly show the outcome of coaching.
Individual Behavior Adjustments
The first area to measure is individual behavior adjustments. The coaching participant likely identified several specific behaviors to be addressed during coaching, so use those behaviors as indicators. Think about how you can structure the indicators to give you the answers you need. Here are a few ideas for how you might want to create your list:
- Behaviors to do more often
- Behaviors to do less often
- Behaviors to do more publicly
- Behaviors to do more privately
- Behaviors to do more with the team
- Behaviors to do more independently
Once you have decided which indicators to track, set up a method of measuring and monitoring that works for your specific situation.
Team Performance Improvements
Another potential area to measure coaching success is team performance improvements. This is a more medium-term measurement, as it may involve several people in addition to the coaching participant, or it may involve a team that has been coached as a group. The specific indicators you use will usually flow from the behavior adjustment indicators previously established. Some examples include:
- Team productivity
- Team attendance record
- Team sales totals
- Team customer service levels
Cultural Shifts
The third area where you can measure coaching success, cultural shifts, is the most long-term in nature. This involves looking at the overall culture of the organization and how it has been affected by coaching. In most cases, a business will look at this area only after coaching has been widely used in the organization to develop enough executives who are in a position to influence organizational culture.
Things to measure may include:
What is the overall attitude toward coaching within the organization? Is it positive, negative, or neutral?
How have coaching participants used their growth and development to impact the organization?
Is there a “coaching climate” within the organization that promotes and encourages a coaching-style of development for employees at all levels?
Are potential new coaching participants easy to identify, either because they ask for coaching or because their supervisors are more actively looking for people who would benefit from coaching?
These are just a few examples of ways you can judge the success of coaching. The specific method you choose will depend on whether you are measuring individual or team results, whether you are looking for short, medium, or long-term measurements, and what goals you defined at the start of coaching.
