Known Outcomes of Coaching & Mentoring (Part I)

1.     Giving new meaning to work: organizations function best when workers feel they are engaged in a useful cause, not merely performing menial, dissociated tasks.  Coaching provides perfect opportunities for the coach to communicate to each individual how that person’s job contributes to the overall mission of the organization.  While this message can be delivered partly in group meetings, it is best done in one-on-one coaching conversations.  IT is an essential message though, because people today need meaning in their lives more than ever.  The overall impact of being part of a family has declined in society.  There has also been a general decline in the influence of religion in most people’s lives.  The net effect is that for a  good many people, if their work lacks meaning and purpose, then their lives lack meaning and purpose.

2.     Engaged & Committed Employees: One powerful driver of productivity is the level of employee engagement and commitment.  When people move from indifference to true passion for the mission of the organization, it has an incalculable impact on output.  There has been much discussion and debate about the various percentages of people who are highly engaged, not very engaged, neutral or actively disengaged in their work. The differences in these employees attitudes have obvious consequences for a wide variety of performance outcomes. Think of the results you’ve seen from an employee who was highly committed to the organization and who delighted your most difficult customer compared to those from an uncommitted employee who seriously ticked off another long-term loyal customer.  Managerial coaching shows strong evidence of increasing an employee’s level of commitment and engagement.

3.     Higher Productivity: One of the most appealing outcomes from coaching is higher productivity, using whatever metric your organization chooses.  The measurable outputs from your people increase when they receive periodic coaching. The reasons are not at all mysterious. Coaching refocuses people on the most important objectives.  It lets them know that their leader is paying attention to their performance.  It helps them to develop better work habits, working both harder and smarter.  All the known drivers of productivity can be increased through the leader’s coaching.  Peter Drucker, famed executive and leadership coach, hypothesized that if an organization could increase employee productivity by 10 percent, the organization’s profits would double.  Whether or not these numbers are absolutely accurate, the bottom-line impact is hard to ignore.  How could such a small increase in productivity affect profitability so greatly?  The fixed costs of the organization have already been “paid for.” If productivity were to increase by even 5 percent, almost all of the benefit would drop right to the bottom-line.

4.     Stronger Culture: There is strong evidence that an organization’s culture has a huge impact on its performance and productivity.  By culture we refer to “how things get done around here” and how people treat one another in their daily interactions.  Leaders influence organizational culture by the example they set and the behavior they reward or curb in their daily discussions with people.  The climate and the culture are molded by the time leaders spend in having performance and career development discussions with their direct reports.

5. Strengthened Bonds Between Supervisor & Employee: The effectiveness of leaders is controlled in large part by the strength of the bonds between them and the people they lead.  A distant, cool relationship between boss and direct report seldom has the strong impact on performance that a warm, positive relationship has.  Coaching is an extremely effective tool to not only cement that bond but also continually enhance its strength.  

The Extraordinary Coach: How The Best Leaders Help Others Grow, John Zenger (2010).