1. Top-Tier Entrepreneurs Have Coaches
Bill Gates: “Everyone needs a coach…We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.” [link]
Eric Schmidt: “Everybody needs a coach…every famous athlete, every famous performer has somebody who’s a coach. Somebody who can watch what they’re doing and say, ‘Is that what you really meant?’ Give them perspective. The one thing people are never good at is seeing themselves as others see them. A coach really, really helps.” [link]
Mark Zuckerberg: “I needed to be more open.” So he hired a coach to help him “identify and hone the essential skills of running a fast-growing company.” [link]
Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Sheryl Sandberg, Marc Andreessen, and Ben Horowitz all had coaches. [link]
2. Venture Capitalists Support Coaching
Here’s David Hornik at August Capital on CEO coaches:
I'm increasingly convinced that all startup CEOs should have a coach with whom she can be fully transparent and work through tough problems https://t.co/IF7QAbU6Ez
— David Hornik (@davidhornik) July 9, 2017
Brad Feld at the Foundry Group wrote a post about The Power of a Great CEO Coach. One of their portfolio CEOs had this to say about coaching: “You can talk about business issues in the context of how you feel about them. This is a crucial benefit, because no matter how good your relationship with board members, expressing those feelings necessarily affects the business conversation…Consequently, the normal mode for a CEO is to have all of it in your head; and sometimes it just rolls around in there and makes you crazy…the key for a CEO coach is that they be able to quickly understand the business issues AND the emotional issues, and tie them together.”
Here’s Fred Wilson at Union Square Ventures on CEO coaches: “I’m a big fan of the work they do and how they can help entrepreneurs work on things that are holding them back from being the best leaders they can be.” [link]
Here’s Mark Suster at Upfront Ventures: “Behind every great startup are amazing lawyers, mentors, exec coaches, recruiters, etc that never get the full credit they deserve.” [link]
Pear Ventures is an early adopter of providing CEO coaching for their portfolio companies.
3. Qualitative Benefits of Coaching
There have been numerous studies on executive coaching that I’ll summarize here.
2013 Executive Coaching Survey (Stanford Business School & The Miles Group)
This study surveyed 203 respondents (CEOs, Senior Execs, and Non-Exec Directors) on executive coaching:
- Shortage of advice. “66% of CEOs do not receive coaching or leadership advice from outside consultants or coaches, while 100% of them stated that they are receptive to making changes based on feedback. Nearly 80% of directors said that their CEO is receptive to coaching.”
- CEOs are looking to be coached. 78% of CEOs with coaches said it was their idea to look for a coach. “Becoming CEO doesn’t mean that you suddenly have all the answers, and these top executives realize that there is room for growth for everyone. We are moving away from coaching being perceived as ‘remedial’ to where it should be something that improves performance, similar to how elite athletes use a coach.”
- CEOs find coaching enjoyable. 96% of CEOs strongly agreed or agreed with the statement, “I enjoy the process of receiving coaching and leadership advice.”
2017 Executive Coaching Survey (Sherpa)
Sherpa surveyed 900 participants. The majority were coaches and the remainder were HR professionals. Respondents were asked to specify qualitative benefits of coaching. These were the top three results:
- Improved awareness. An executive coach from Phoenix said: “examination of blind spots [leads] to greater self-awareness, increased confidence, and more effective engagement, influence, and action.”
- Lasting behavioral changes. A coach from Washington D.C. mentioned that a great coach “creates meaningful behavior change that the client can sustain over time and that improves the well-being and effectiveness of the individual, team, and organization.”
- Improved relationships. A German coach said great coaches teach leaders “to be authentic and autonomous. Becoming a leader is authentic with becoming yourself, and … success is due to your ability to communicate, negotiate, and lead.”
4. Quantitative Benefits of Coaching: ROI
There have been numerous studies that have attempted to quantify the benefits of coaching. They try to estimate the incremental financial impact of a coach to a project or business unit. Of course, these types of “quantitative” estimates are inexact and hard to measure since there’s no way to truly A/B test the impact of coaching. In addition, the sample sizes for these studies were fairly small, so please take the below findings with a grain of salt:
ICF Global Coaching Client 2009 Study
This study was commissioned by the International Coaching Federation (ICF). Audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) conducted the study with 2,165 coaching clients surveyed. This study is probably the largest scale coaching study available and one of the few conducted by an independent party.
There were 189 respondents that provided a return on investment figure. The median company ROI was 700% and 86% of respondents found coaching to be ROI positive.
MetrixGlobal 2001 Study
This study was commissioned by a Fortune 500 company to measure the benefits and return on investment of coaching. 43 executives within the company were surveyed. MetrixGlobal conducted the study.
They found that “coaching produced a 529% return on investment and significant intangible benefits to the business.” In addition, 77% of the respondents said coaching had a significant or very significant impact.
The Manchester Review 2001 Study
Manchester Consulting conducted this study with 100 executives who had worked with a coach. They found the average ROI was 570%. Furthermore, 86% of participants were very satisfied or extremely satisfied with coaching. And 73% achieved goals very effectively or extremely effectively.
How to Find a Coach
Interested in giving coaching a shot? If so, check out Ed Batista’s excellent post on How to Find (and Choose) a Coach.
related:
your executive coaching investment
