“The American Management Association (AMA) commissioned the Institute for Corporate Productivity to conduct a study entitled “Coaching-A Global Study of Successful Practices-Current Trends and Future Possibilities 2008-2018” This is the third comparison of the findings of this independent study with the methods practiced by TCC for over 7 years that further validates that TCC’s very unique method of connecting TCC clients with their best-matched coaches provides the most successful process for coaching clients to achieve their coachable goals.

“The AMA/Institute for Corporate Productivity study found that only about a quarter of respondents assess coaching’s bottom-line impact on the business to a high extent, but even this might represent an uptick in such practices, based on previous reports. “

Furthermore the study reports:

“So far, however, the literature indicates that relatively few organizations have formal procedures in place to measure coaching’s success. McCormick (2007) polled 500 readers of Personnel Today and reports that 67% of respondents say their organizations don’t measure coaching ROI and an additional 20% say they simply don’t know if coaching outcomes are measured. Furthermore, not only are formal measurement systems not yet in place, many companies (some of which have used executive coaches for years) aren’t even sure what they would measure if they had to. In fact, 44% of respondents in McCormick’s study (2007) believe it is impossible to measure the ROI of coaching at all, and, if their organizations must measure it, then anecdotal evidence of its effectiveness is all that’s possible.”

“One study suggests that only a minority of organizations assess the impact of their coaching interventions (McDermott et al., 2007), and another finds that a scant 9% of survey respondents said they formally assess coaching’s return on investment (Sherpa, 2007).”

In essence, most organizations do not measure the results of their coaching investments, and do not appear to measure the value of the results, if any, of the coaching used.

The success rates of coaching were tied to whether organizations measured success

Yet, the study reported that the success rates of the coaching engagements were directly related to whether the organization made an effort to measure coaching success, regardless of the measurement methods used.

“MAJOR FINDING-The more frequently respondents reported using a measurement method, the more likely they were to report success in their coaching programs.”

Thus the study concluded that the success rates of coaching would improve for any organization that chose to use some method to measure the successes of the coaching engagements. Yet, a minority of organizations does not even bother to measure success.

Organizations can improve coaching successes by just measuring results

I find these two conclusions of the study to be remarkable revelations. I was amazed to learn how few organizations attempt to measure success rates for coaching assignments. I was less surprised to learn of the strong correlation between successful coaching and the act of just measuring success. Where just measuring success increases the success rate.

TCC has published a synopsis of an ROI calculation for organizations by MetrixGlobal, LLC for over 6 years that showed a ROI of over 529%.

Yet, this and other calculations of the ROI are still subjective, and can be difficult to determine, but they are so high that even the most conservative ROI calculation will be high.

TCC determined that the true measurement of any coaching engagement is whether, at least, the initial coachable goals of the individual clients were achieved. This study appears to confirm this opinion. TCC has been measuring whether clients achieve their initial coachable goals since 2001. Approximately 96% of TCC’s clients have done so. TCC clients must express at least one coachable goal to TCC before coaching will be allowed to commence. Thus, the client, the coach, and TCC all know the client’s initial coachable goals going into the coaching process. Since the achievement of these goals can only be determined and declared by the clients, we use continued follow up with the clients to discover their success rates.

Another thing that we learned is that approximately 80% of TCC’s clients added and achieved other coachable goals as they proceeded into the coaching process. TCC has not been privy to these added coachable goals, unless the clients voluntarily reveal them, because they are confidential actions between the coaches and clients. Thus, we can only guess at the 80% number.

One of the characteristics of all coachable goals that TCC clients have generated (15 different coachable goals so far) is that they are all very remarkable goals that sound too good to be true. The benefits and rewards from achieving any of the coachable goals created by TCC clients will most certainly be incredible. That also holds true for the main coachable goals outlined by the Study for organizations. Two of TCC’s coachable goals are the same as the two primary goals selected by organizations, when they chose any goals. In essence, attaining these coachable goals will be so beneficial, that calculating the degree of benefits (ROI) would probably be too difficult to be productive.

Hopefully more organizations will read and use the valuable information presented in the “Coaching-A Global Study of Successful Practices-Current Trends and Future Possibilities 2008-2018,” so they can also enjoy the remarkable rewards generated by their employees accomplishing their coachable goals.