Business and Executive Coaching in the News

Coaching management is a hot trend at a growing number of FORTUNE 500 companies, from IBM and Dow Chemical to Marriott International.

“Coaches are everywhere these days. Companies hire them to shore up executives or, in some cases, to ship them out. Division heads hire them as change agents. Workers at all levels of the corporate ladder, fed up with a lack of advice from inside the company, are taking matters into their own hands and enlisting coaches for guidance on how to improve their performance, boost their profits, and make better decisions about everything from personnel to strategy.” - TIME Business News &- Fortune, May 21, 2000
"Executive coaches are not for the meek. They're for people who value unambiguous feedback. All coaches have one thing in common; it's that they are ruthlessly results-oriented." - FAST COMPANY Magazine
"As a $100 million business second only to the IT industry in its US growth rate, coaching is the latest must-have lifestyle and business accessory - the solution to both workplace under-achievement and premature stress burnout." - Vive, Summer 2000
"Between 25 percent and 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies use executive coaches" Recent survey by The Hay Group, an International Human Resources consultancy
"I never cease to be amazed at the power of the coaching process to draw out the skills or talent that was previously hidden within an individual, and which invariably finds a way to solve a problem previously thought unsolvable," John Russell, Managing Director, Harley-Davidson Europe Ltd.
"Asked for a conservative estimate of the monetary payoff from the coaching they got, these managers described an average return of more than $100,000, or about six times what the coaching had cost their companies." - Fortune, 2/19/01, "Executive Coaching -- With Returns a CFO Could Love"
"Coaching is the number two growth industry right behind IT (Information Technology) jobs, and it's the number one home-based profession." - Start-Ups Magazine
"Across corporate America, coaching sessions at many companies have become as routine for executives as budget forecasts and quota meetings." - INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY
“... [A coach is] part advisor, part sounding board, part cheerleader, part manager and part strategist." The Business Journal, April 10, 2000
"Inside every successful business person is an even more ambitious one trying to get out. He or she just needs a little help." - Someone To Watch Over You, 10/9/00, Australian Financial Review
"A coach may be the guardian angel you need to rev up your career." - MONEY Magazine
"Call it professional coaching, executive coaching, life coaching, or corporate coaching. Whatever the name, this new phenomenon is one of the hottest services in corporate America today. Some data show that the quality of the relationship between boss and subordinate is a major predictor of intentions to remain. Coaching--which can help managers talk with subordinates about their developmental needs--absolutely affects that relationship positively. And there's a big potential payoff."- says David A. Thomas, Fitzhugh professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. THE BUSINESS JOURNALApril , 2000
At Harvard Business School, Linda Hill, professor of business administration, says - she's inundated with requests to coach. "Coaching is becoming something of a heavy industry. It's amazing," - says Warren Bennis, professor of business administration at the University of Southern California's business school.
"If ever stressed-out corporate America could use a little couch-time, it's now. Trust in big companies is at an all-time low. Baby-boomers have been burned; Gen Xers aren't expecting the Corporation to take care of them. Under the circumstances, employees are much likelier to go outside and get independent advice to help them be better managers" - says Karen Cates, assistant professor of organizational behavior at Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
"What's really driving the boom in coaching, is this, as we move from 30 miles an hour to 70 to 120 to 180...as we go from driving straight down the road to making right turns and left turns to abandoning cars and getting on motorcycles...the whole game changes, and a lot of people are trying to keep up, learn how, not fall off." - says John Kotter, professor of leadership at the Harvard Business School.
Who qualifies as an executive coach? At the moment, just about anybody. "I wonder about the vulgarization of coaching," "I'm concerned about unlicensed people doing this." - says Warren Bennis of USC's business school.
"We've done lots of research over the past three years, and we've found that leaders who have the best coaching skills have better business results." V.P. of Global Executive & Organizational Development at IBM.
“Coaching is the only cost-effective way to reinforce new behaviors and skills until a learner is through the dangerous results dip. Once through the dip, when the new skills bring results, they will become self-reinforcing." Training and Development Journal.
"The demand for Executive Coaches has skyrocketed over the past 5 years.... today’s executive coach (EC) is intended to help leaders and potential leaders across the rocky, wild, and challenging road of organizational growth in today’s dynamic and unstable work environment....As with most emerging professions, the rules and guidelines for how to make executive coaching work have been scanty at best. This gap has been felt by executives seeking help, their organizations, and the scores of people putting up shingles as EC’s. At the same time, a cadre of other types of coaches is trying to catch the coattails of the popularity of executive coaching." - The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - American Psychological Association
“The Xerox Corporation carried out several studies, one of which showed that in the absence of follow-up coaching 87% of the skills change brought about by the program was lost. That’s 87 cents in the skills dollar. However good your skills training in the classroom, unless it’s followed up on the job, most of its effectiveness is lost without follow-up coaching. For example: Most sales people try out the new skills for a few calls, find that they feel awkward and the new method isn’t bringing instant results, so they go back to their old ways.
"Corporations believe that coaching helps keep employees and that the dollar investment in it is far less than the cost of replacing an employee." Fitzhugh professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School-above two quotes from TIME Magazine (Sept 25, 2000) article about Executive Coaching

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