EVALUATING IMPACT OF COACHING AS A METHOD FOR MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT Sari Salojärvi JTO School of Management, Tampere University of Technology

Coaching as a Development Method Coaching has recently become one of the most popular management development methods Coaching as a term may refer to different fields; sports, arts, life coaching etc. As a management and executive development method coaching started to grow from late 90’s; in Europe it was really launched after 2005 Management coaching can be defined as follows “ Coaching is a process where the coach helps the client to learn, develop and achieve his/her work life targets” (Virolainen, 2010: 60) Coaching is nowadays widely recognized as one of the fundamental leadership styles that top leaders need in order to operate effectively – “coach approach” is spreading from professional coaching relationships into general use (teachers, leaders, colleagues can coach) (Whitworth et al. 2007) 9/20/2015 2AES 2011 Sari Salojärvi

Background of Coaching Coaching is a practical development method – most often it is a person to person relationship, a process consisting of meetings (face to face or virtual conversations) with agreed assignments between the meetings Coaching is closely related to facilitation, counseling, mentoring and process consultation, but coaching is more target, achievement and future oriented than its relatives Theoretically coaching has its roots in psychotherapy, learning theories, system theories, NLP, philosophy, sports, appreciative inquiry and change models (Virolainen, 2010) ICF (International Coaching Federation), an organization for professional coaching,was founded 1998 So far there is relatively limited amount of research on coaching, and even less research on the impacts of coaching 9/20/2015 3AES 2011 Sari Salojärvi

Current Context and Purpose of Coaching In the global corporate world coaching is becoming a standard part the organizational toolkit to help employees, managers, supervisors and executives in their personal development and achievement (Whitworth et al. 2007) Many organizations are now bringing coach training into the organization, so that coaching skills and coaching context are developed in-house Coaching is mainly used to improve the client’s self-management skills, leadership behaviour, managerial skills and work performance. At the same time with the improved work performance also an increase in organizational results is expected to take place Several surveys show that coaching is considered as the most potential and influential management development method (Järvinen & Salojärvi, 2007) In most cases there are 3 parties in coaching: the client, the HR professional of the client company and the coach. 9/20/2015 4AES 2011 Sari Salojärvi

Research Questions and Method 5 This study focuses on the evaluation of the impacts of coaching There is a general strong tendency to believe that coaching is a strongly influential management development method but there is little research evidence on that The main research questions are 1) How is management coaching evaluated in general? 2) What are the expected and perceived impacts of coaching? 3) How can the impacts of coaching be effectively evaluated? The study is based on the following methods: Interviews with individual coaches and HR-professionals A group interview with 12 professional coaches Second hand data analysis of the existing studies 9/20/2015 AES 2011 Sari Salojärvi

Results: How is the management coaching evaluated in general (Q1:1) Most often coaching is being evaluated through the following methods: Self-assessment: the client is evaluating the quality and personally perceived utility of the coaching process afterwards, and sometimes also the competence of the coach is evaluated at the same time. The evaluation is either carried out by using a questionnaire or an interview. The evaluation is most often organized by the coach, sometimes by the HR-professional or sometimes by both. 360˚- assessments are used in many cases (less than 50% of the interviews) – then it is often pre- and post assessment Company specific performance assessments are used in some cases too, but it is more rare 9/20/2015 6AES 2011 Sari Salojärvi

Results: How is the management coaching evaluated in general (Q1:2) Evaluation of the coaching is mainly based on the subjective experience, which represents the levels 1 and 2 on the Kirkpatrick’s (1994) levels of evaluation: 1)Participant’s reactions and experience of the process 2)The perceived utility by the participant 3)Change in the participant’s behavior 4)Change in the participant’s and organization’s results In some cases, when 360 ° assessment is used, the evaluation is done also on the third level The fourth level assessment is really rare, and takes place only when personal or organization specific performance measures are used in the evaluation The first level evaluation doesn’t tell about the objective impacts of coaching, but more about the skills of the coach 9/20/2015 7AES 2011 Sari Salojärvi

Results: What are the expected and perceived impacts of coaching (Q2) The most general expected impacts of coaching are: 1)Development of self-management skills: time management, setting priorities, stress management etc. 2)Development of professional competence: negation or selling 3)Change in the work place behavior: leadership style, networking, communication style etc. 4) Achieving business related targets: growth of sales, profitability, new markets, increased customer satisfaction etc. These can be related to Kirkpatrick’s evaluation stages 2-4 The most general perceived impacts of coaching are: Development of self-management Development of leadership style (stages 2-3) None of the interviewees reported clearly about the level 4 impacts (changes in the results of the organization) 9/20/2015 8AES 2011 Sari Salojärvi

Results: How can the impacts of coaching be effectively evaluated (Q3) There seems to be a contradiction between the expected and perceived impacts of coaching, and evaluation practices related to impacts -> there are a number of expected impacts on all the levels 1-4, a little less perceived impacts (levels 1-3), but the used evaluation methods actually only can tell about the level 1 or 2 impacts on the Kirkpatrick’s scales. There is a need to develop the evaluation of the impacts of coaching to respond the targets and expected outputs Therefore, the following evaluation matrix is suggested 9/20/2015 9AES 2011 Sari Salojärvi

Suggested Evaluation Matrix for coaching The desired impact/targetEvaluation methodTools Self-managment skills and self knowledge Self assessment Narratives, interviews and open questionnaires Professional and competence development, ie Selling skills, negoation skills, customer service ability, change architecture Competence measures. self –assesment, surveys; Pre and post evaluation Customer feed-back, peer evaluation, superior’s evaluation, surveys and competence maps Change in the behavior, ie Leadership style, communication style Multiple source assessment Pre and post assessment 360 ˚ -evaluation, interviews, climate surveys Change in the organisation’s Acitivity and results Assessment of the organization’s performance Pre and post assessment Organization's performance measures and reports, managerial accounting, BSC 9/20/ AES 2011 Sari Salojärvi

Practical Implications The HR-professionals and coaches could better match the targets and desired impacts of coaching with the evaluation methods; When the targets of coaching are recognized and set, should also the evaluation methods and measures accordingly be selected, and the pre evaluation done By matching the targets and evaluations methods in the beginning of the coaching process, the evaluation of the impacts of coaching gets a lot easier and more objective The evaluation matrix may also help the clients to recognize their own specific development needs on different levels and enhances focusing on them in the coaching process 9/20/ AES 2011 Sari Salojärvi

Summary Coaching is generally considered as a very powerful management development method The targets of coaching relate to different desired concrete impacts, but the evaluation methods used so far seldom measure these impacts To better match the desired impacts and evaluation methods of coaching, an evaluation matrix is suggested in this paper By matching the targets of coaching and evaluation methods in the beginning of a coaching process, coaching can be what it is meant to be: reflective, solution oriented and action oriented (Grant, 2006: ) 9/20/ AES 2011 Sari Salojärvi

References Grant A A Personal Perspective on Professional Coaching and Developiment of Coaching Psychology. International Coaching Psychology Review 1 (1), Järvinen V. & Salojärvi, S Henkilöstöjohtamisen trendit JTO:n tutkimusraportti. Kirkpatrick, D Evaluating Training Programs: The Four Levels. Berrett- Koehler Publishers, San Francisco. Phillips, J Handbook of Training Evaluation and Measurement Methods. Kogan Page, London. Salojärvi, S Evaluation of Impact of Coaching as a Management Development Method. Article in process. Virolainen, I Johdon coaching: rajanvetoja, taustateorioita ja prosesseja. Acta Universitasis Lappeenranta /20/2015 AES 2011 Sari Salojärvi13