Looking for a coach can be a daunting experience because there are a lot of different coaches, offering many different services with very different credentials and experiences. Below we offer some help to those looking for two types – Executive and performance coaching.

Executive coaches:

Your Context: As a company you may be requiring a wide range of capability at a senior manager, executive or directors level, who may need an external sounding board for strategic, political and decisional issues that will impact the organisation; address their personal developments needs in a confidential manner; assist significant transitions or promotions of key individuals. All these requirements call for an executive coach, normally to be found outside the system of your company. Normally, this means one to one coaching of each senior executive.

What you need to look for: It is important that the executive coach has superior training in coaching and an extensive business exposure and background in order to understand and relate to the pressures and context of the executive.

Be Sure To Ask – for information about their coach training, and whether that specifically addressed the corporate arena. (Many consultants and trainers now label themselves coaches without formal coach training and some ‘life coached’ trained coaches are trying to venture into the corporate arena.) Also, ask if they have been credentialed or are a member of an independent credentialing organisation. The ICF (International Coach Federation is the longest established and world-based organisation.)

Performance coaching:

Your Context: When someone in your organisation is performing below the required level – often, identified by his or her manager, (who may see this to be remedial situation beyond their capability to change) you need to call on a performance coach. Or where you have a need to improve performance across a function or group – say in sales or productivity. Coaching here calls for close monitoring of the specific performance issues, calling on the individual (or group) to review their current performance, identify improvement possibilities and set goals and objectives to effect better performance. The range of business issues that can be tackled here can range from sales, marketing, poor efficiency in group activities, people management and leadership.

What you need to look for: The coach here must be skilled either in one to one, or group coaching competencies, as required. They must also have had training and be aware of the special needs of the areas being tackled. As an example, if improvement is sought in communication skills, some competence and awareness of communication models, learning and development of EQ and communication styles of others would be necessary, as this coaching assignment calls for a part coach, part trainer, who would be imparting new knowledge.

Be Sure To Ask – about their results – great coaches will have hard fact results to give you of the improvement of their clients’ performance. Ask for their competence and their previous experience tackling such areas before. Ask for number of hours coached, case studies or stories of how they have dealt with that scenario before.

Do let us know if you’ve experienced such challenges and how you have addressed them.

By Penny Sophocleous©

Chief Executive, Corporate Alchemy