9 KEY THINGS TO KNOW YOU’RE GETTING YOUR ROI FROM EXECUTIVE COACHING (And Some Behaviors That Tells You’re Not)

Habits are like financial capital – forming one today is an investment that will automatically give out returns for years to come.

Shawn Anchor, The Happiness Advantage: How a Positive Brain Fuels Success in Work and Life, 2010

How do we put a value on executive coaching? If you’re a business owner, CEO, or senior manager and you’ve decided to hire an executive coach, how do you know whether the advice is worth your while? 

This is more difficult than it seems. First, how do we put a monetary value on something like personal or career advancement? Second, even if we could put such a value on executive coaching outcomes, it is not clear how to compare that value with the costs of executive coaching.

But sometimes, the business owners and leaders are going through some painful transitions in their careers—such as separation from a longtime partner—and it’s not clear what, if any, measurable improvements might be a result of coaching rather than other factors.

Here are 9 crucial things to know when you have a return of investment from your executive coaching: 

1. When you’ve had measurable results. This can include reduced turnover, improved compliance rates, higher sales, and/or increased productivity as a result of working with your executive coach over time.  When the changes take place, they should be related to the work that was accomplished in specific sessions or as a result of coaching-related activities.  If you don’t have these kinds of results, then it’s probably time to reassess whether the coaching relationship is working for you.

2. When the coach asks where they fit in your bigger picture and makes suggestions about the best ways forward, based on their expertise and experience, that can be helpful to you as an individual or as a leader.  This may include advice about where to reskill, how to work with other leaders, and what to focus on in upcoming talent reviews.  If they are bringing you fresh eyes and new perspectives based on decades of experience working with similar types of executives, your ROI will be significant.

3. When the coach helps you set SMART goals and works with you to achieve them.  The coach should be helping you identify the right goals for your career, your team, or your department that are specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, and time-bound.  If the coach isn’t providing you with data that tells you whether or not your efforts are bearing fruit, then it’s not worth your investment.

4. When the coach focuses on what you need to do differently based on their experience and expertise in executive coaching, instead of telling you how great you are as a leader or manager. They should encourage you to move out of your comfort zone or into territory where you’ve never worked before – because that’s where the real growth happens.

5. When you find yourself doing things differently as a result of your coaching relationship, and the new behaviors have positive results for your individual or team effectiveness and overall organizational performance.  Then you know it’s been worth the investment in time and money to work with an executive coach.  

6. When you can answer yes to the following questions:  Do I feel more confident about my ideas and decisions?  Am I getting the results I want and need from others in a way that is consistent with how I want to manage them?  And am I more comfortable with pushing back when someone disagrees with me, even when it’s a senior leader?

7. When you have clear direction about how the organization will move forward or what your personal next steps are as a leader, manager, or executive that allows you to feel personally successful and satisfied at the end of this coaching engagement.  If they don’t tell you where to take yourself from here, then you’ve not had a satisfying experience.  

8. When you feel committed to going out and interviewing other candidates for new roles in the organization that is beyond your current level of scope, skill set, or size.  If they’ve developed enough confidence in you to promote you, then it’s been a good coaching relationship.  

9. If you’re not sure whether you’ve had a good return on your investment in executive coaching, ask to speak with their other clients about the value they receive from their relationship.  Another way to find out is to ask them about any changes they’ve seen in themselves or others since working with them.  There should be some examples of how their coaching has made a difference in your life and the lives of others for the better.  

There are also some behaviors to watch out for that indicate that you may not be getting your money’s worth out of an executive coach:

1. When they tell you how great you are as a leader or manager and don’t take time to help you learn what you need to do differently.  This isn’t coaching; it’s telling you how smart or important you are – which may feel good at the moment but doesn’t help your career or move you into a different role in the organization.

2. When they focus on getting their ideas across and tell you what to do instead of working with you to help you figure it out for yourself.  They may call this coaching, but really, it’s more like a personal trainer that tells you how to bench press instead of teaching you in the first place and letting you do it on your own.

3. When there are no measurable goals for your career or team development, and you show up for sessions every month or two but there’s no clear plan to get you the results, insights, and development that you need.  This is how a lot of personal training goes as well – people invest in it without much planning around what they want to accomplish.

4. When coaching sessions are short on data about your individual performance or team performance, and long on stories about the past or theories that are untested.  If you want to learn something, you’re paying for a professional service – not an opinion.  

5. When they don’t understand how to help you see data in a new way to make your life better in some tangible way, and they fail to help you connect your new thinking and behaviors to the outcome of what you want.  We’re all set in our ways, so it’s hard for us to see the world from a different perspective – but that’s why we hire coaches!

6. When they don’t make time at each meeting to debrief on how things went and what you learned or create an action plan for how you’re going to tackle the next challenge in your life.  This is where people fail – all of us skip this step without realizing it, but months may go by before we see our coach again.  

7. When they don’t have a way for you to measure how your performance is improving – often this means working with you to create new tools for tracking and measuring.  Without a way of knowing if your efforts are paying off, it’s hard to make the case to senior leadership that coaches should be in the budget again next year.  

8. When they don’t tell you what someone else thinks of you. It’s not coaching if they tell you what you want to hear about how great you are – it’s flattery.  The only way to know if these kinds of statements are a waste of money is to check in with others and see whether they see the same thing.  

9. When their proposals don’t include a plan for how they’ll guide you through your transition out of one role and into the next, or how they’ll help you get that promotion. The most successful coaches have a strong sense of what it takes to move up in an organization – and after they’ve helped you grow as a person and leader, they can help you get to the next step.

10. When your boss refers you to a coach, and you go because it’s required – but then after a few sessions, you stop going because there’s no value in what you’re doing.  The best coaches understand that they’re part of an ecosystem of relationships and support – and ask at every meeting how the relationship with your boss is going.  

Though it’s difficult to put a monetary value on executive coaching, you can always check whether it has a significant impact on your career advancement. You can look at the measurable results it brings to you in the span of the coaching relationship like reduced turnover and/or higher sales. Aside from that, you can tell that executive coaching has a positive impact on you when it brings you new perspectives, helping you get the SMART goals, and achieves positive results from new behaviors. When you can say that you are confident with your ideas and decisions and can see the clear direction on moving forward as an executive. When your executive coach has positively impacted other executives like you and when you feel you can evaluate others beyond your level. When all these things are achieved through your coaching relationship, then it is safe to say that you’re getting your ROI.

Of course, there are behaviors to watch out for which can tell you that you’re not getting your ROI. But, none of these signs is a guarantee that you won’t get value from working with the coach – but if they’re true about the person you’re thinking of hiring, it may be a sign that you’ll need to do some extra work to help them deliver results and make sure the fit is right.  If they’re all true, my best advice is to move on – thousands of other coaches will be happy to work with you instead!