Benefits for the Company: Faster integration of leaders
into new roles and cultures, higher executive effectiveness,
improved communications and morale, and improved job satisfaction
and retention. The Manchester, Inc., study in 2000 found coaching
produced an ROI of almost six times its cost. A DBM study in
2000 said, "Changes in skills and performance of executives
who received coaching are still evident two years later." (Schmuckler
& Ruben)
The Professional Coaches and Mentors Association's web site
lists 12 types of executive coaching (including career management,
hi-potential, assimilation, and inter-cultural) and three core
coaching approaches: inquiry/reflective (eliciting assumptions
and values which underlie behavior); observational (also called
"shadow coaching"); and instrumented (using MBTI, Firo-B, 360,
etc.)
Coaching Success Story
A growing, entrepreneurial company recruited fifty-two year
old Bill from a very senior position at its dominant competitor
where he had spent the past 25 years rising through the ranks.
Bill, who continued to use his top-down management style in
his new position, expected the same automatic compliance he
had received from long-time subordinates at his old company,
who trusted him. However, his new entrepreneurial colleagues
resented this style. Coaching increased Bill's awareness of
the impact of his communication style in the context of the
new company and gave him the insight he needed to change. The
coaching investment allowed his new employer to leverage Bill's
valuable industry knowledge and helped Bill succeed in his career
move.
Methods and Tools: Assessments and instruments (Myers-Briggs,
Birkman); profiles (personality, learning, work performance);
feedback (360-degree surveys); interpersonal skills (active
listening, objective feedback)
How Hired: Most often the executive or human resources
selects external coaches for a period of three to six months
or longer and may partner with internal coaches (coach the coach).
The coach works confidentially one-on-one to support an executive's
developmental, behavioral, and career goals.
Credentials: Professional coaches may have psychology,
communications, and organizational development backgrounds,
plus years of executive experience in the industry or position.
They are skilled in recognizing and working with the psychological
processes of the individual and the organization. They may hold
International Coaching Federation (ICF) certification and may
have attended a coaching school or certification program.
What's the difference between a coach and a consultant?
Consultants typically bring content and analytical expertise
into the organization to address specific issues. Coaches use
process expertise and tools to support clients in developing
their own answers through expanded ways of seeing themselves
and their situations.
What's the difference between a coach and a mentor? Coaches
and mentors both work one-on-one, but mentors tend to offer
specific content as well as contacts, while coaches focus on
processes to support clients in doing their own learning.
Mentor
Purpose: Mentoring is a formal arrangement for a specific
time period between a person experienced in a particular area
(mentor) and another person (mentee), less experienced, who
is seeking help and guidance in order to know, understand, or
succeed in that area. The most sought after mentors are often
successful executives. The quality of the results obtained through
mentoring depends upon the follow-through, commitment, and initiative
of the mentee.
The mentor and mentee, by mutual agreement, determine the duration
and frequency of meetings. By definition, mentors are internal
to the organization or community and generally volunteer their
services. Formal mentor/mentee relationships usually last three,
six, or twelve months with a weekly or bi-weekly meeting.
Benefits to the organization: Rapid improved effectiveness
of the mentee. Corporations use employee mentor programs as
part of their employee development process. Employees can request
a mentor to improve their current skill area or to learn about
other career opportunities.
Mentoring Success Story
Joe Programmer wants to increase his effectiveness in handling
his multi-project assignments at work. As part of a formal mentoring
program, Joe is paired with Maria Mentor, a senior project manager,
who is skilled in time and project management. Joe and Mary
agree on the logistics (when, where, length) of their mentoring
meetings. Joe provides Maria with his desired results for their
sessions together and agrees to follow through on commitments.
Maria tutors Joe in project management basics and arranges introductions
for Joe with others in project management positions who can
provide input, suggest a course of action, or point Joe to additional
resources to help move him forward. Joe applies what he has
learned from Mary and uses her connections to strengthen his
own professional network. His effectiveness in managing his
projects has greatly improved, and his stress level decreased
as a result. Their mentoring relationship ends after an agreed
upon period of time, in this case six months.
What is the difference between mentoring and coaching?
Mentoring is often confused with personal or executive coaching.
A mentor, generally a volunteer, uses his/her knowledge, connections,
and skills to help another reach desired goals. A personal coach,
usually for a fee, helps an individual uncover his/her own answers
or direction. However, some mentor-coaches will interject their
knowledge into their dialogue with the client.
Oops! Wrong Modality: Using the wrong modality is counter-productive
for participants and decreases the credibility of the sponsors
of the program. For example, as part of a management development
program, the company required Nancy to sign up for coaching.
Nancy is a self-directed individual who is excellent at managing
her time and her projects. Nancy's areas of self-development
were to improve her negotiating skills and to increase her connection
with managers in the company. The personal coach Nancy drew
did not provide any support for improved negotiation skills
nor for Nancy's expansion of management contacts. The sessions,
according to Nancy, were a waste of time and money. Nancy needed
a mentor to help her understand the informal workings of the
management organization and to provide introductions to other
management resources.
Facilitator
Purpose: A facilitator is a professional skilled in
group dynamics whose job is to bring forth the opinions, data,
and wisdom that exist within a group. Pure facilitation is content
neutral, the goal being to create a safe environment for participants
to share thoughts, feelings, and beliefs so a team can develop
its own culture and norms. Facilitation promotes participant
buy-in and rapid commitment, because the resulting decisions
are collaborative wisdom or knowledge.
Benefits to the organization: A facilitator's role is
to encourage all participants, inviting introverts as well as
extroverts to express their views and to manage the energy so
that the most vocal do not dominate the discussion. This guarantees
the highest use of talent. A skilled facilitator can assist
the group to synthesize the best input from all of the participants
into a more sophisticated whole than any one member could have
created. Solid facilitation skills are desirable for consultants,
coaches and trainers.
Facilitators provide value to multifunctional groups who need
to develop common language and to brainstorming or strategy
sessions that require generation of free flowing ideas. Any
meeting can benefit from a facilitator, although meeting facilitators
tend to be part time facilitators, part time masters of ceremonies,
and part time management experts responsible for agenda completion.
Facilitation Success Story
Frank Facilitator has content expertise in organizational
development and is skilled in group dynamics. He facilitates
meetings of many cross-functional product teams. Frank is good
at balancing multiple interests using group processes without
inserting his opinion into the discussion. He takes care to
summarize what has been said, helping the group find synergy
in the discussion. He helps quieter voices get heard, using
games and experiential techniques. This team is becoming more
productive with Frank's assistance, reaching common ground more
rapidly in spite of team members' different backgrounds and
points of view.
Duration and how hired: Half-day meeting to a two- or
three-day event. Preparation for these meetings and events requires
pre-meeting interviews and assessment as well as post-meeting
review. Most facilitators are hired for the meeting or event.
Pricing is fixed and includes prep time. Senior executives and
major corporations often have dedicated internal OD practitioners
who are skilled facilitators or external facilitators on retainer.
Where used: Retreats, board meetings, strategy sessions,
product or program kick-offs, team start-ups, any tough complex
decision with multiple stakeholders.
Credentials: Facilitators often have degrees or experience
in organizational behavior, organizational development or organizational
psychology. They are skilled at asking questions designed to
bring out the range of opinions in an organization as opposed
to offering expertise. They may be a member of the International
Association of Facilitators or the Organization Development
Network.
Oops! Wrong Resource: It is difficult for department
managers or executives to cleanly facilitate meetings in their
own organization. Their authority hampers their ability to be
neutral and their subordinates tend to defer to their opinions.
Ed Executive attempts to facilitate his own strategy meeting.
Ed believes there is no need for a facilitator because he understands
the issues as well as anyone. He chooses not to engage one to
save the cost of the fee. Ed shares his own expertise first,
in the process shutting down contributions from his subordinates.
Participants nod their heads in a show of support for Ed's authority,
but in reality they do not feel heard and do not buy into Ed's
plan. Months later the continued resistance to his initiative
and the slow pace of its implementation stymie Ed.
Consultant
Purpose: A consultant is typically an external resource
who assists in achieving a complex corporate or organizational
goal with which internal resources have been struggling. The
consultant brings objectivity, a new perspective, and, often,
specialized industry or functional expertise. A consultant's
skill set usually includes the ability to assess the situation
quickly, determine the real issues, and propose alternative
courses of action.
When consultants are internal, they typically won't have direct
line control. They are more likely to be consulted, and their
recommendations are seen as input to the final executive or
managerial decision. External consultants also typically provide
specialized expertise, but rarely make final decisions.
Tools: Most consultants have methodologies to assist
them in assessing an organization's current situation. They
use analytical processes, maps, and tools to help organizations
close the gap between where they are and where they plan to
be. In recent years, technology consultants have been most in
demand due to the rapid pace of technological change. Their
tools often include system management and the ability to write
customized software applications to address unique client needs.
Management and OD consultants have skills that overlap the most
with coaches, trainers, and facilitators. They improve organizational
performance and often address organizational dynamics, change
management, and leadership issues. Strong management and OD
consultants tend to have facilitation, personality instrumentation,
team-building techniques, and coaching process skills in addition
to analytical skills in their tool bag.
Success Story
Caroline Consultant has content expertise in market research
and strategic planning and strong facilitation skills. Her Fortune
500 client hires her to support the executive team in developing
their product strategy for the next three years. Victor, the
VP of Marketing, has Caroline research industry trends and competitors
prior to facilitating the strategy discussion with the executive
team. Caroline is an optimal fit for this particular assignment
because she has the research skills and industry knowledge to
keep the team grounded in the market realities and the facilitation
skills to engage the entire team in this complex decision-making
process. Caroline is so successful with this assignment that
VP Vic asks her to help the divisions with their research and
implementation plans as well.
Ooops! Wrong Modality. Executive coach Ellen gains the
confidence of CEO Charlie. Charlie trusts Ellen 100% and asks
her to facilitate their strategic planning session, which will
drive the strategic initiatives for the ABCD Company for the
next two years. Ellen has excellent facilitation skills but
is not financially savvy enough to ask the right questions to
focus the conversation on critical success factors. The strategic
plan is not rooted in the reality of the competitive industry
situation. The "vision" ABCD comes up with is inspiring but
not achievable in the time frame stockholders will require.
Ellen could have avoided this outcome with a referral to a strategy-savvy
colleague.
How hired: Consultants can be hired by the day, task,
or project. Consultants are typically hired for several months
at a time.
Examples of where used: Anywhere that time-critical,
complex, high-impact decisions must be made.
Credentials: Consultants typically have advanced degrees
from solid schools (MBA, PhD, MS Engineering), or certifications
in specialized tools (MBTI, SAP, Cisco Certified). They may
have worked for leading edge companies who have developed the
methodologies they use in their work (SAP, IBM, DDI, Covey,
McKinsey, major consulting firms) or have been an analyst for
an industry (IDG, market researcher, investment banks).
Trainer
Purpose: Trainers face a daunting challenge: transferring
large blocks of content to participants who must typically use
the new knowledge rapidly to experience job success. Usually
trainers have been selected to address a specific skill or knowledge
gap in the organization that applies to an entire group of participants.
Corporations and organizations use training to keep their employees
up to date on the latest business practices and technologies.
Employees want training to add to their value in the marketplace.
Associations want to provide educational opportunities to their
members to keep their skills current or to introduce new processes,
information, or skills.
How Hired: Usually selected by the department head or
team leader or by the human resources department if the knowledge
gap is organization-wide. The duration of training is generally
from a half-day to a week. A good trainer makes him/herself
available for questions during a reasonable period of time after
the class. Trainers are generally hired by the course with the
length of the class and the level of expertise required the
major factors in the remuneration of the trainer.
Benefits for the Company: Knowledge is disseminated in
a rapid, consistent, and cost efficient manner to large or small
groups of people.
Training Success Story
Sam Student wants to learn to use Microsoft's Front Page in
order to build and maintain his organization's web site. He
signs up for a class available through a local training organization.
Terry Trainer is an expert on the use of Front Page and is skilled
at engaging his students as well as creating course material.
The course material is easy to follow, challenges the students,
and enables follow-up after the course. Terry is able to field
questions from Sam and the other students while posing thought-provoking
questions. Sam profits immediately from the class and uses Front
Page to build the site.
Methods and Tools: Training is the means of transferring
information from the subject matter expert (trainer) to the
student. Training can be offered face-to-face, in a lab, or
by teleconference, videoconference, e-learning, or self study,
both web based and paper based. Strong training programs blend
these delivery methods, choosing the most cost-effective implementation
that is appropriate for the skill being learned. Face-to-face
methods are chosen where interaction is critical to the learning.
Web-based methods can be ideal where consistency is critical
to becoming familiar with a given body of knowledge, such as
with new policies or procedures.
Credentials: Trainers have expertise in instructional
design and delivery plus curriculum development and facilitation
and OD process skills. Workshop and seminar leaders need to
have more facilitation and OD expertise to provide the experiential
component expected in these modalities. On-line and e-learning
training experts must have expertise in designing e-processes.
Trainers are often confused with speakers and lecturers. There
are many similarities, such as the transfer of information,
expertise, and the need to engage the audience. The professional
speaker tends to have a shorter face-time with the audience
and is expected to be topical, highly entertaining, and tailor
the talk to their audience's needs. A trainer knows course development,
typically transfers a higher density of information per hour
than a speaker, and is expected to transfer detailed content
for attendees to retain and use in their jobs.
Oops! Wrong Modality: Terry Trainer is hired to do a
keynote talk at an association conference. The conference organizers
want a speaker who is knowledgeable about the subject matter
and knows the association to provide pearls of wisdom in an
entertaining manner. Terry knows the content, but does not have
the platform skills to carry off a keynote talk in front of
3,000 conference participants. His talk is too detailed, too
stiff, has little entertainment value, and the audience has
difficulty determining his key points. The conference organizers
are disappointed and the attendees are bored and exit before
the end of his talk.
Professional Speaker
Definition: Professional speakers are experts in their
chosen field who are paid to motivate, impart their knowledge,
and connect with their audience to provide a memorable experience.
Benefits to the Organization: Attendees are motivated,
get new ideas, get inspired, and are edu-tained.
Speaker Success Story
Sally Speaker is an expert in the area of information overload,
specifically in effective communications and in the misuse of
e-mail, phone mail, and snail (paper) mail. She has written
a book and articles and is well known in the field. She has
been speaking for several years, and audiences respond to her
authentic presence and dry humor. Technical companies and conferences
hire Sally to help employees/attendees become more effective
in gaining control over information overload and to make the
process fun to enhance learning and retention.
Professional speaking is often confused with public speaking.
Public speaking occurs when anyone presents to a group of individuals.
Toastmasters is an organization known for helping people to
improve the quality of their public speaking. Professional speaking
is when a skilled presenter who is an expert in his/her field
expert is paid to speak, enlighten, and entertain a group of
individuals, usually with a specific purpose in mind.
Professional speaking is often assumed to include any trainer.
While both trainers and speakers convey information, professional
speakers master sophisticated platform skills that inspire,
motivate, and edu-tain.
Oops! Ouch! Wrong resource choice! Anytime an expert
with poor platform skills is asked to do a keynote before a
large audience at a conference, there will be disappointment
and time wasted for the audience.
How Hired, Duration: A keynote presentation may be arranged
a year in advance. Conference breakout sessions are assigned
six to nine months prior to the event. In-house talks at corporations
are arranged several months or weeks ahead. Professional speakers
prepare for their engagements by researching the organization,
its needs, and its current concerns. An engagement may be anywhere
from a half-hour to a full week. A contract for in-house talks
may include post-event follow-up, such as content for newsletters,
but this is negotiated. Professional speakers are hired by the
event or occasionally by the series. Professional speakers are
most often used for conferences, company or group off-sites,
customer meetings, sales meetings, and association events.
Oops! Out of Scope
The following categories have not been addressed, but may
show up in discussions about resources. In the context of choosing
the right resources, these categories are almost always automatic
oops. Contract workers are also referred to as consultants.
Contract workers are typically short-term employees who
require a high level of skill. They rarely act in an advisory
role. Instead, they act as a spare pair of hands where resources
are constrained.
Recently unemployed professionals may hang out a shingle
to avoid the stigma associated with being unemployed. While
these pros often have useful expertise and credentials, their
lack of experience in managing the business relationship can
cause you to spend added dollars with low return.
A Final Note: Return On Investment
This article has focused on choosing and using the right resource
for the right task every time. It has offered examples of the
benefits of a good fit between task and resource.
Getting it right also favorably impacts ROI. If you happen to
work with CFOs who care about these things, here is an anecdotal
example meant to encourage us all to spend a little more time
to get it right.
If the Manchester study, which indicated that coaching produced
six times its cost in benefits, were indicative of the typical
coaching return on investment, why wouldn't every organization
do as much of it as they could? 600% ROI? Wall Street should
have it so good.
When a Fortune 500 company offers training to accompany implementation
of a major enterprise-wide software initiative, they increase
the value of the software investment by increasing employees'
comfort level with the application. The difference between no
training vs. training everyone is the difference between nobody
using the software, a total waste of the investment, vs. a high
proficiency in its use in multiple applications by everyone.
The increase in the value of the software to the company might
be as much as tens of millions of dollars.
On the other hand, after Ellen, the executive coach, facilitated
the strategic planning retreat, the executive team chose an
ill-advised course of action due to Ellen's lack of finance
and business knowledge. That error cost the organization a market
window for introducing a product and wasted technical resources.
Oops. The cost of using this particular highly skilled, but
wrong, resource was $400 million in lost revenue.
Choose and use the right resource for your task and your ROI
will be many times the investment, every time.
References and Resources
Coaching
"An Executive Coach Should be Viewed as Aide, not Enemy," by
Joann S. Lublin, Wall Street Journal, February 18, 2003
(www.wsj.com)
"Coaching for Results: An Overview of Effective Tools,"
Marcia Ruben, CMC, and Jan M. Schmuckler, Ph.D. (www.pcmaonline.com)
"The Case for Executive Coaching," by Andrew W. Talkington,
Laurie s. Voss, and Pamela S. Wise, Chemistry Business,
November 2002.
International Coaching Federation (www.coachfederation.org)
Professional Coaches and Mentors Association (www.pcmaonline.com)
Mentoring
Linda Phillips-Jones, The Mentoring Group, (www.mentoringgroup.com)
email: info@mentoringgroup.com
San Jose Business Journal, May 2, 2003, "Survey: Mentors
Can Mean IT Career Success" (www.sanjose.bizjournals.com)
Consulting
Flawless Consulting (2nd edition) by Peter Block (www.amazon.com)
Advances in Appreciative Inquiry by David Cooperrider
et. al. (www.appreciativeinquiry/cwru.edu)
Million Dollar Consulting and The Ultimate Consultant
by Alan Weiss (www.summitconsulting.com)
Institute of Management Consultants (IMC) (www.IMCusa.org,
www.imcnorcal.org)
Organizational Development Network (ODN) (www.odnetwork.org)
The Harvard Business Review (harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu)
Facilitation
Organizational Development Network (ODN) (www.odnetwork.org)
International Association of Facilitators (www.iaf-world.org)
International Speakers Association Facilitators PEG (www.nsaspeaker.org)
David Cooperrider / Appreciative Inquiry (www.appreciativeinquiry/cwru.edu)
Facilitation see also: Open Space, Future Search, Whole Scale
Change
Training
American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) (www.astd.org)
Bob Pike Group Training Newsletter (www.bobpikegroup.com)
Games Trainers Play by Ed Scanlon (www.amazon.com)
Professional Speaking
National Speakers Association (www.nsaspeaker.org,
www.nsanc.org)
Public Speaking
Toastmasters International (www.toastmasters.org)
(4357 words) Copyright © 2005-2007 Nan Andrews Amish, Colleen
Cayes, and Joy-Ellen Lipsky. All rights reserved.
Nan Andrews Amish and Big Picture Perspective
offer facilitation, member surveys, management assessments,
tools, workshops and keynote addresses to help associations,
leaders and teams increase their effectiveness by seeing the
big picture perspective. Nan knows associations. She is past
president of a 1000 member New England regional marketing association
and current board member and 2002 Member of the Year of the
National Speakers Association/Northern California.
