There are three things you should consider before deciding the answer to this question.
First and most fundamentally, ask yourself whether your organisation genuinely embraces the value of coaching – or does most of your C-suite view coaching as a new-fangled gimmick peddled by HR? It’s pretty difficult to foster a coaching culture if a substantial proportion of your leaders don’t believe in the process in the first place.
Second, does your organisation have the capability to provide really effective coaching internally? Of course, you could always hire coaching specialists and put them on the payroll, but you’re most likely to get the best out of in-house coaching if you are able to transfer coaching skills to capable people throughout the organisation.
This could extend much further than just training your development specialists in coaching. For example, some of your line managers could deliver performance coaching to their reports; and, at the top end of the organisation, leaders can make excellent coaches for other leaders.
However, the third factor to take into account is whether your organisation is prepared to make allowances for the privacy that underpins effective coaching. If a manager tells her in-house coach her inner concerns, insecurities and problems – and then finds them on the agenda at her next performance review, you can be sure that she’ll either refuse to accept coaching again or keep her mouth firmly shut at every session.
In general, you will need to consider the internal reputation of your HR department, which is likely to be the significant internal sponsor of most coaching.
How independent of the command structure is the HR function? Is your HR team trusted? They may have a stated policy of complete confidentiality, but that isn’t going to be worth much unless it has been demonstrated in practice and over time. Even a single slip, when it emerges (which it nearly always will, given time), will kill all employee trust in your HR function for years to come.
If all of these factors check out, it is still likely that some coaching conversations will be very difficult if the coachee has to bare their soul to a work colleague they interact with every day. So even if your organisation decides to carry out the bulk of its coaching in-house, you may want to establish some ‘at need’ parallel access to an impartial and independent coaching resource.
What should you look for in an outsourced coaching provider?
The unhappy truth is that there are a lot of people who call themselves business coaches without having any right to do so. The sector is not licensed, and some people do a couple of seminars and read a book – and then start calling themselves business coaches.
So here’s a checklist of potential considerations to help you establish whether you’re outsourcing to someone who is going to deliver truly useful coaching:
- Look for intellectual horsepower. Effective coaching requires a lot of insight, and the ability to grasp complex issues.
- Seek credentials in both business experience and practice. Wisdom (as opposed to intelligence) really counts in this area, and for most people that correlates with experience over time… quite a lot of time.
- In addition, find out whether the practitioner is accredited (and by which organisation), and whether such accreditation is followed up with regular supervision.
- Test flexibility and objectivity. If a coach always uses the same approach, regardless of the circumstances, beware. Not every issue is a nail, and nor is the solution always a hammer. People just aren’t that simple. Look for a framework, and a sophisticated (and adaptable) toolkit.
- Expect a good provider to talk about objectives, clear and limited timescales, and the need to gather and use data, both quantitative and qualitative.
- Test their willingness to be judged by results, and to report progress (or lack of it). Coaching sometimes works, and sometimes doesn’t – and anyone who thinks the process is more important than the outcome needs to be shown the door.
- Examine how well they understand that they have to be working for the coachee as well as the sponsoring organisation. Not everyone gets this three-way contract.
- Be aware that some coaches foster dependency within their coachees, in the interests of creating long-term fees…
- …and some level of philosophical ‘fit’ with your organisation is always a good idea.