trends in executive coaching: 2014

Winter // 2014

TRENDS IN EXECUTIVE COACHING

FUTURE TRENDS IN EXECUTIVE COACHING: INSIGHT FROM THE AIIR GLOBAL COACHING

ALLIANCE

JONATHAN KIRSCHNER, PSY.D.

CHRIS COULTAS, MS.

AIIR CONSULTING EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Looking ahead into 2014, business leaders want to know how executive coaching will deliver maximum value in a business environment where:

‣ Organizations continue to face a VUCA environment (Volatility; Uncertainty; Change; Ambiguity).

‣ A younger generation of leaders are moving in as boomers continue to transition out.

‣ Crowd-funding, social networking, public 3D printing labs, and DIY resources can equip your next door neighbor with the resources necessary to create a product or service that can upend your business model.

To better understand how coaching will add value to organizations in 2014, we asked seasoned practitioners in the field who coach globally, across a diversity of sectors, and who partner with senior leaders to navigate through the challenges of today in order to fully realize the opportunities of tomorrow. In this executive brief, we summarize the findings of our qualitative research, in which we surveyed senior members of the AIIR Global Coaching Alliance1 about their perspectives on future trends in executive coaching. When we asked these coaches how executive coaching would add maximum value to organizations in 2014, three primary themes emerged.

Question 1: How will executive coaching add value to organizations in 2014?

Leader Cognition - Help executives stay focused amidst a sea of information and disciplined in ensuring thoughtful strategy guides execution

Developing New Leaders - Upskilling new Gen Y leaders for greater leadership roles

Focus coaching investments on leaders who are critical to the success of the organization

1 The AIIR Global Coaching Alliance is a team of senior level executive coaches who combine years of experience influencing human behavior change with a deep understanding of business and talent development. All members of the Global Alliance have direct business experience, most at the executive level within an organization. Each consultant has engaged thousands of hours in the art and science of influencing behavioral change.

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CURRENT TRENDS IN EXECUTIVE COACHING:

INSIGHTS FROM THE AIIR GLOBAL COACHING ALLIANCE

I. Leader Cognition: Focus and StrategyIn a VUCA world, complexity and the proliferation of information has become the new normal. In this context, there are increasing demands on leaders to reduce complexity, separate signal from noise, and do all of this in accelerated time frames. As Jim Kimberly states, "coaches need to help leaders pause more, so they can speed up later.” As such, a key role that coaches will play for leaders is in helping them to think more effectively, or what we call Leader Cognition. According to our survey respondents, the three highest impact areas of Leader Cognition are:

‣ Focus: Staying focused by managing information flow effectively, delegating, and leveraging self-awareness of personal derailers.

‣ Big-Picture Thinking: Helping leaders rise above the details to see the big picture, where they can think and act strategically. This capability is what, according to AIIR’s NPO lead, Chaya Abelsky, distinguishes between a good leader and a “visionary catalyst.”

‣ Information management: The quantity of inputs is exponentially increasing and can quickly become overwhelming. AIIR’s head of Europe, Geetu Bharwaney, explains that operating in this information age “will require leaders to learn how to deal with massive amounts of information and rise above it.”

II. Accelerate the development of new Gen Y leadership talent?The second theme that emerged was the increased need emerging leaders will have for leadership development. According to AIIR’s Kathryn Wankel, “Organizations are seeing brain drain as they lose long-tenured baby boomers without ready-now successors to step in.” According to Dr. Manuelle Charbonneau, “Coaches can add value here by helping to accelerate transitions of HiPos into leadership positions.”




III. Focus Development toward leaders critical to the success of the organizationOrganizations spent 2009-2011 focused on stopping the bleed. As recessionary challenges slowly diminished, organization’s focused on becoming lean and reorganizing for future success. In 2014, with the economic recovery in place, organizations will need to focus on setting the future strategy of their business. According to Dr. David Yudis, “Coaching needs to develop leaders critical to strategic execution.” Furthermore, Dr. Merom Klein notes that “the traditional focus of coaching being solely utilized as a tool for developing bench strength and succession is not enough. There are immediate performance pressures that we'll have to coach leaders to achieve. These include strategy-execution, revenue growth, cost reduction, innovation, post-M&A integration and compliance.”

How will executive coaching evolve in 2014?

We asked the AIIR Global Coaching Alliance “What trends will emerge in the year ahead for the practice of executive coaching? Three primary themes emerged:

Question 2: How will executive coaching evolve in 2014?

1. Coaching must first and foremost deliver business value - and fast

2. There is an increasing need to qualify coaches in a market that has become saturated with coaches

3. Increased utilization of technology as companies shift their priority from high-touch to immediacy, global accessibility, and greater value




I. Coaching must add business value in a limited timeframeNearly 65% of coaches foresaw an increased need to measure the ROI of coaching. According to AIIR's Head of India, Rajeev Raju, “Coaches will have to show confidence in turning the dilemmas around more quickly than ever before; time is of the essence and ROI has to become far more apparent as organizations tighten their purse strings.”

In the view of Dr. Jeff Kaplan, there will be a “continued emphasis on highly focused and time-limited coaching initiatives around one or a few developmental issues” as opposed to “loosely l i m i t e d a n d b ro a d l y d e fi n e d initiatives.” Furthermore, he states that there will be an “increased emphasis on coaching expertise” where “coaches will need to deliver content, not just ask powerful questions.”

II. Qualify coaches among an increasingly saturated marketAccording to Merom Klein, “As more seasoned execs retire, we will see lots of them hanging out shingles and calling themselves coaches.” What this - and many responses like it - suggests is that a new class of coaches are increasingly displacing the older generation, and that the ability to quickly re-brand a career to ‘coach’ has never been more easy.

According to Dr. Kirschner, “The amount of certification programs and marketing messages from these associations that promote the great wealth-potential of becoming an executive coach has led to a situation where the supply [of coaches] is disconnected from demand. To become a coach, the barriers to entry are simply time and money for a certification - not talent, experience, or robust training. As such, identifying a qualified coach in today’s market is an unbelievable challenge, and the value of partnering with coaching organizations that maintain rigorous qualification standards will become increasingly important in ensuring quality and managing risk.”




“Time is of the essence and ROI has to become f a r more apparent as organizations tighten their purse strings.” - Rajeev Raju - Head of AIIR India.

III. Increased Utilization of TechnologyExecutives being coached today are younger, extremely adept at technology, globally focused, and don’t operate within the traditional paradigm of work/life balance. With telepresence technology becoming an increasingly viable option for meaningful interpersonal engagement (and physical travel not becoming significantly cheaper/more convenient), coaches must learn to use and leverage technology more f requent ly and effectively. If organizations are cutting costs (or allocating fewer resources to leadership development), it is unlikely they will be keen on paying for a coach’s travel time and expenses when there are technology solutions that can enable the same deliverables to occur with the same results. Over 70% of our respondents cited the increasing use of technology in executive coaching as an important need for 2014.

In Rachel Benyola’s view, “Video conferencing will be a more common practice for emerging and existing leadership to resolve time constraints and heighten communication quality between coach and coachee.” According to Jonathan Kirschner, “The recent advances in telepresence technology will increasingly make telephone coaching sessions obsolete.”

“Video conferencing will be a more common practice for e m e r g i n g a n d e x i s t i n g leadership to resolve time constraints and heighten c o m m u n i c a t i o n q u a l i t y between coach and coachee (Rachel Benyola)




Conclusion:Our research highlights the intersection between elements of executive coaching that will never change (i.e. centrality of relationship; asking powerful questions; driving leadership development) and the dynamic landscape of global business, economic trends, and ever changing socio-political realities.

Our research paints the picture of a business environment where coaching must add value for a leader that is immersed in information, grappling with VUCA, and amidst a significant generational shift in leadership. For coaching to add value for today's leader, our qualitative research recomends that coaches address these shifting needs by:

‣ Helping leaders develop increased Leader Cognition‣ Providing formal direction as well as powerful questions‣ Ensuring that coaching is focused on creating business impact‣ Up-skilling new GenY leaders to take on greater leadership responsibility‣ Designing coaching interventions within accelerated time-frames‣ Leveraging technology to increase immediacy, accessibility, and convenience

for leaders on the go who need to engage their coaching activity with more efficiency.




About the Authors:

Acknowledgements:

The following research and white paper would not be possible without the participation of the AIIR Global Coaching Alliance, whose thought leadership has is renowned in both the applied and research settings. In particular, we would like to thank the following individuals for their contribution to furthering our executive coaching research:‣ Chaya Abelsky- AIIR NPO Practice Lead‣ Rachel Benyola- Senior Executive Coach‣ Manuelle Charbonneau -Senior Executive Coach‣ Geetu Bharwaney - AIIR Europe Practice Lead | Senior Level Coach‣ Christopher Coultas - Director of AIIR Research‣ Jeff Kaplan - Senior Executive Coach‣ Jim Kimberly - Senior Executive Coach‣ Jonathan Kirschner - CEO, Senior Executive Coach‣ Merom Klein, Senior Executive Coach‣ Rajeev Raju, Head of AIIR India Practice Lead | Senior Executive Coach‣ Kathryn Wankel, Senior Executive Coach‣ David Yudis, Senior Executive Coach

Jonathan Kirschner, Psy.D. is a consultant and business leader. As the founder and CEO of AIIR Consulting, Jonathan developed the AIIR method for creating sustained behavioral change as well as the AIIR Platform - a cloud based coaching platform that enables telepresence coaching sessions. As a coach, Jonathan works with High-Potential managers and senior leaders, globally, across a broad range of public and private sector organizations.

Chris Coultas, MS. is AIIR’s Director of Research. Chris ‘s research has significantly contributed to the coaching literature. In addition to his work at AIIR, Chris leads a team of organizational research psychologists looking into the factors underlying the effectiveness of executive coaching. Chris also works with Drs. Eduardo Salas and Shawn Burke at the University of Central Florida, where he is pursuing his Ph.D.




AIIR Consulting is a business psychology consulting firm dedicated to increasing the effectiveness and performance of leaders and their organizations. AIIR Consulting’s services include executive coaching, talent assessment, and leadership development solutions. By utilizing its telepresence based technology, AIIR Consulting redefines the limits of traditional consulting by making development available anytime and anywhere.




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