Last week, I wrote about the ROI of executive coaching, the things that can be measured. Today I want to look at the “Soft” value of coaching, the things that are not measurable, but still have value, often considerable value.

Most of the time, a coach is hired for business reasons. Either a company wants to raise the level of its leadership, or an individual wants to break out of their plateau and take their work and career to the next level. So the conversations begin with a strong focus and bias towards business and career success.

In that process, however, we often move to bigger picture issues, because the same things that hold us back in our work and careers are often holding us back on a personal level as well. We begin to look at things like life-work balance, relationship-building and life purpose.

Unlike profitability and productivity, these are not directly measurable. What we CAN measure, however, is what the people being coached think. And we can put numbers to that. In fact, the International Coaching Federation has done studies and here is what they have found.

• 80% of people being coached feel their self-confidence rose.
• 73% of people being coached feel their relationships, at work, at home and with friends, improved significantly.
• 72% of people being coached report that their communication skills improved dramatically
• 67% of people be coached report that their life/work balance improved.

The Harvard Business Review speaks to other benefits as well:

• Fresh perspectives on old issues and problems
• Increased motivation
• Better team building ability
• A higher level of loyal to the company that invested in them.

And Wayne University, when they studied the effectiveness of coaching, found that people who used a personal coach:

• Managed complexity better
• Were more effective in asserting and using authority
• Boosted the effectiveness of the people around them

Can you measure these things? No. But when they are added to the measurable ROI of coaching, it makes a powerful case in coaching’s value.

Be well. Travel wisely,

Tom

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