For most people, the word “coaching” evokes images of sports teams and middle-aged men screaming from the sidelines. However, coaching in the corporate setting, where a professional coach provides one-on-one assistance to help a manager or executive achieve business and personal goals, is becoming an increasingly important management tool. As evidence that coaching is coming of age in the corporate setting, Fortune magazine devoted seven pages to the topic in its February 21, 2000, issue; and Corporate Coach U International, Inc., drew representatives from many well-known companies to its first conference for employers and coaches in March 2000. In addition, the International Coaches Federation (ICF), the two-year old nonprofit professional association for coaches, estimates that the number of people entering the field has doubled each of the past three years. Currently, the ICF has approximately 2,400 members and estimates there are well over 10,000 full- and part-time coaches.

The picture that emerges, however, is that top executives and operating managers usually are the ones taking the initiative to find their own coaches. In many organizations using coaches, HR is often being left out of the loop when it should be a natural advocate and strategic partner. As an HR practitioner, therefore, you need to understand the issues and the driving forces behind the coaching trend so that you won’t be left out of the decisionmaking.

Coaching can be defined and practiced in many different ways. It is not consulting or therapy, but many coaches are consultants or industrial psychologists. HR Matters contributing editor, Lanny Blake, an HR consultant and executive coach, describes coaching as “guided self-discovery.” In most cases, a coach collaborates with an individual client in a custom program to help the client develop to full potential, both professionally and personally. According to the ICF, most coaches work with clients to develop their natural strengths and often focus on achieving goals related to business, career, finance, health, and relationships. For example, an executive may engage a coach to help master new job responsibilities or to facilitate an internal career transition.

A coaching program normally identifies values and strengths, goals, changes needed, priorities, and action steps, and then provides continuing guidance and follow-up to direct progress and celebrate milestones. In the corporate setting, coaching generally relates to accomplishing organizational goals but also naturally involves personal issues as part of the process. For example, a manager who wants to become better at setting goals and motivating employees may first have to learn to become more assertive and communicate better.

There are two types of corporate coaching: external, which involves the use of outside practitioners, and internal, which involves the use of specially trained in-house staff. Whether external or internal, it is normally conducted in a one-to-one, customized fashion, but can be tailored to groups. Telephone sessions are the normal mode for service delivery of external coaching, although face-to-face meetings may be used in high-level executive coaching, particularly in the initial stages. The length of a coaching assignment varies from a few months to eighteen months and longer. Coaching sessions generally range from half an hour a week to an hour or two at varying intervals.

Coaching, like any personal service, is not inexpensive. Fees for external coaching in the noncorporate setting are in the $200 to $400 range per month. Fees for outside corporate coaches are more likely to be at least $1,000 per month and can range substantially higher, depending on the coach’s expertise and the client’s position and needs.

The coaching phenomenon appears to have strong forces propelling the need for its services. The strongest force is the rapid and accelerating rate of change occurring in most people’s business and personal lives. The industrial economy of the last century, which focused on the production of tangible goods, has been replaced by the new “knowledge economy,” which emphasizes creativity, collaboration, and flexibility - skills that most workers are not taught. In addition, new technology (like the Internet) is forcing companies to rethink their business strategies and is also allowing, and even requiring, workers to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As a result, traditional business relationships and “comfort zones” are being disrupted with the result that symptoms of stress, burnout, and imbalance are rampant not only in the workplace, but also in employees’ personal lives. All of these forces place tremendous pressures on workers at every level to establish focus, clarity, and balance in order to function and grow. Coaching has proven to be a powerful tool to achieve these ends, for both the individual and employer, because it teaches people to identify their strengths, to set goals and achieve them, to be flexible, and to be self-reliant.

To date, most of the use of coaches in the corporate arena has involved external coaches. Typically, a top executive or manager recognizes a personal need to accelerate change or growth and contracts directly with an external coach to facilitate the process. Unfortunately, HR often is left out of this loop because it is viewed primarily as an administrative function or, worse, as one that will complicate the process. In fact, the Fortune article describes coaching as “one of the hottest things in human resources, except that it doesn’t usually come out of human resources.” As a result of this perception, HR may be missing an opportunity to become a strategic partner. There is a growing need in organizations that embrace coaching to unify the process, coordinate and monitor performance standards (credentials, outcome measurements, feedback, etc.), and control costs. In other words, HR has an opportunity to exert strategic leadership and be proactive as a champion of coaching as a developmental tool.

Once HR chooses to become a partner in corporate coaching, there are still several hurdles to overcome to successfully implement the program. First, as one internal coach at a large pharmaceutical company aptly put it, for any coaching program to work, the coach’s stature and credibility must be impeccable and the coach must be free from internal politics and economic pressure. This standard is difficult for an external coach to meet but is even tougher for an internal one, especially if the client to be coached is in a senior position in the organization. Second, confidentiality is critical to any coaching relationship, and HR’s ability to maintain it may legitimately be suspect because of its role in employment decisions. Therefore, HR has a major challenge in building a wall between its employment role and the coaching function. Finally, a good coach must be able and willing to identify “blind spots,” make unpopular recommendations, and resist the temptation to be politically correct.

The coaching trend and the driving forces behind it appear to have sustaining power. Therefore, HR professionals need to assess whether coaching should have a role in their organizations. A first step is to take inventory and see if any top executives or operating managers currently are using coaches or feel there is a need. The next step is to access the growing body of information available on coaching. The Internet is a rich source for this, and your first stop ought to be the International Coach Federation Web site (see “For additional information on Coaching,” below). As you assess the applicability of coaching for your own organization, weigh carefully the issues raised above and the relative roles and merits of external and internal coaching. To this add a final observation: Most coaches seem to radiate an almost evangelical commitment and passion for helping people develop their full potential. This kind of enthusiasm and energy is a scarce resource in today’s environment and one you should consider embracing.

For additional information on Coaching:

Corporate Coach U International, P.O. Box 881595, Steamboat Springs, CO 80488-1595; 888-391-2740; and Web site, www.ccui.com.

International Coach Federation, 1444 I Street, NW, Suite 700, Washington, D.C. 20005; 888-423-3131. Its Web site, www.coachfederation.com, includes a referral listing for coach members and lists thirteen coach training schools. The organization also has developed a professional accreditation program.