Measuring Coaching Results After Coaching Certification

Internal coaching programs measure the competencies of coaches and the results of the coaching program. This creates the opportunity for ensuring the appropriate training is in place and defining the value of the program. Coaching certification ensures a clear understanding of the role of the coach and develops coaching competencies. According to the International Coach Federation, the ICF, there are 11 Core Competencies for coaching certification within four groupings:

• Setting the Foundation – ethics and agreements
• Co-creating the Relationship – trust and presence
• Communication – listening, questioning, direct communication
• Facilitating Learning and Results – awareness, design actions, goal setting, accountability

How are coaching competencies measured?

• Assessment following coaching certification – completed by the trainer
• Observation by the coach’s coach – managed through the program administration
• Feedback from the constituency – surveys of coaches, coachees, those working with the coachees
• Coaching 360 – the Center for Coaching Certification has a 360 evaluation of coaching competencies

How are the results of the coaching program measured?

• Qualitative measures include: employee engagement, skill development, enhanced workplace relationships, employee wellness, and company culture.
• Quantitative measures include talent retention, turnover, productivity, and sales (based on the numbers in company reports from before and after the program implementation).

As a best practice, tie the measure to the program goals.

Funding the measure of coaching competencies and program effectiveness validates the program and leads to consistent benefit. It is possible to measure results on a tighter budget. For example:

• Use a survey tool such as Survey Monkey for a qualitative measure.
• Ask program participants to complete evaluation forms and compile results.
• Use company reports on turnover, productivity, and sales from before and after.
• Invite intern students to develop and complete a measurement.
• Work with coaching organizations that will measure results.

The coaching program design and management, as well as coach training for coaching certification, impact the results. Visit http://coachingblog.centerforcoachingcertification.com/ for a full series of blog posts on coaching program design and management.

Executive Coaching Certification, Business Coach Training, Career Coach Certification, or Life Coach Training to Differentiate Between Coaching, Mentoring, Training, and Managing

While these roles are often inter-mingled and misunderstood, a clear awareness of the value and distinctions of each role enhances positive results. In executive coaching certification, business coach training, career coach certification, or life coach training, the Center for Coaching Certification teaches each role is truly unique and distinct, serves a specific purpose, and is handled differently. Knowing how coaching is different and understanding the role is essential for a successful program. What does each do?

Mentor

• Provide expertise
• Gives advice
• Offers input

Manager

• Informs of decisions
• Provides direction
• Gives feedback

Trainer

• Assesses learning needs
• Develops training programs
• Manages learning environment
• Provides information
• Creates learning exercises

Coach

• Elicits the direction and expertise from the coachee
• Provides the process for the coachee to strategize and plan
• Empowers the coachee to make their own decisions and determine actions
• Asks the coachee how it is working and what they want to adjust
• Affirms coachee progress and success

Bottom line: In executive coaching certification, business coach training, career coach certification, or life coach training the Center for Coaching Certification teaches how coaching is different from the other roles in that the coach asks instead of tells, clarifies instead of opining, explores instead of giving direction, empowers choice instead of deciding on strategy or actions. The coach does empower the coachee, serve as a sounding board to give them space to explore, ask probing and clarifying questions to expand and challenge thinking, then asks the coachee to define what they want and how they will make it happen.

Coach Training for Internal Coaches

How important is coach training? As with any type of skilled work or service, training is essential. Coaching is a very specific process and is often misunderstood. Some think coaching is part training, part mentoring, part managing - and in reality it is very different. Executive, Career, Business, or Life Coaching is “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.” (International Coach Federation)

The American Management Association, in their Global Study of Successful Practices, shared several major findings on coaching programs inside companies, including one on coach training:

Internal training programs are often based on common misunderstandings of coaching instead of being built on ICF’s 11 Core Competencies of a coach.

Specifically, the AMA recommend external training for internal coaches to achieve the best results.

What type of coach training is best?

• Ensure that the training is approved by the International Coach Federation.
  
• Maximize value with coach training that offers CEUs authorized by IACET.
  
• Verify the training is specifically designed to develop the ICF’s 11 Core Competencies of a coach.
  

What are the resources for coach-specific training? In addition to the Center for Coaching Solutions and the Center for Coaching Certification, the International Coach Federation at www.CoachFederation.org provides a list of hundreds of organizations that offer approved training programs.

Coaching Certification for Personal Trainers

Tom owns his own business as a successful personal trainer. As his client base grew, he realized he wanted to offer more to his clients. Tom had heard his clients concerns and excuses in many of the training sessions and he wanted more ways to help them. He realized they were stuck in self-defeating patterns so he looked for a way to help the whole person. Tom researched and found that coaching certification made sense.

Tom was drawn to coaching because it engages the client and fits well with his role as a motivator and accountability partner. He realized he already had a number of skills for successful coaching work. As a personal trainer, he understood the importance of proper training and knew this included the coaching field. He took the time and made the investment to master the skills and achieve his goals by becoming properly certified in an ICF-approved coach training program.

Tom already had a trusting relationship with his long standing clients so he had developed the rapport and knew their personalities. He decided to add coaching services to his personal traning agreement where he defined the roles and boundaries of the coaching relationship as taught in his ICF-approved coach training.

Now Tom uses his coaching certification to help his clients so they begin setting specific, measurable, and achievable short and long term goals. They choose to change their behavior patterns and create lasting success. His clients now have better results and stick with their training. He finds training and coaching both happen naturally during training sessions. Tom is now a well-being coach in addition to a personal trainer. He is more satisfied with his work and his clients are more satisfied with their results.

Complete Business Coaching Training or Earn Career Coach Certification and Use Whole Person Coaching

In whole person coaching, the coach takes time with the client to fully explore what they want in all areas of their life. Even when the focus of the coaching is on business or career, this makes sense because all areas of life influence focus and engagement at work. After exploring goals in all areas of life during an initial coaching session, future sessions are focused on the business or career. Then, when something from their life is impacting them, the client is comfortable discussing it because of the whole person coaching process.

In whole person coaching, the client has an initial 90 minute session. If you choose to or earn your career coach certification or complete executive coaching training, you will ask the client about what they want personally, in relationships, career, financially, health, and lifestyle. The coach listens, probes, and clarifies. The experience is amazing for the client because they think about what they want in all areas, and they say it out loud which creates a new level of awareness and focus.

During conversations, after you choose to complete business coaching training or earn your career coach certification, you are focused completely on the client. It is the coach’s responsibility to recognize the client’s personality in the moment so the coach can effectively adjust to the client. This is essential because we all have different sides of our personality at different times. The coach is also aware of client language patterns because questions are formulated based both on what the client says and how they say it.

Executive Coaching Training or Life Coach Training for Media Interviewing

Media interviews have the potential to turn a slight misstep in wording into a widely broadcasted misrepresentation of you or your company. Knowing how to handle media situations and different reporter’s styles is important to successfully conveying your message. The message must be clearly formed and flexible to fit time constraints, while giving the intended answers to different questions.

One resource for learning effective language is completing executive coaching training. Alternatively, working with a coach will prepare you to identify and respond to leading questions with confidence. You will learn poison words to avoid and powerful words to include in your answer. Through executive coaching training, instead of falling in the trap of dealing with the past you will bring the focus to the future.

Similarly life coach training is an opportunity to enhance your skills so you easily identify personalities and communication styles within minutes and know how to respond most effectively in each circumstance. Life coach training will teach you to ensure a proactive focus which translates into a powerful personal message for the sometimes prying questions of the media. Coaching certification teaches you the most effective forms of wording and how to build rapport with people quickly.

Executive coaching training or life coach training is an opportunity to prepare yourself so you effectively transform a potentially misdirected media experience into an opportunity for effectively sharing your positive message.

Skills in Life Coach Training, Executive Coaching Training, and Career Coach Certification

Which skills will you learn in life coach training, executive coaching training, and career coach certification at the Center for Coaching Certification? An effective coach listens well, understands how to work effectively with different personalities, utilizes the power of language, asks questions, and is ethical.

Listening Skills: Human nature compares what we hear to what we know, so we often miss the real message. Listening well requires removing ourselves from the equation to truly focus on the other person, their frame of reference, their emotions, their thoughts.

Understand Different Clients: Each of us thinks, processes, and decides based on our personality, experiences, knowledge, and perceived options. Each person is truly unique. As discussed in ICF-approved life coach training, executive coaching training, and career coach certification at the Center for Coaching Certification, understanding how to identify the client personality, combined with listening skills, means the ability to understand and accept the client for who they are in the moment.

Language: Often without realizing, our language focuses on the problem not the solution, the negative instead of what we want, and limits understanding. Learning language nuances, effective questioning, and how to engage means the coach enhances the value of coaching sessions.

Questions: telling everyone what to do, how, and when does not work – it is the opposite of coaching. As taught in life coach training, executive coaching training, and career coach certification at the Center for Coaching Certification, effective questioning puts clients in charge of determining priorities, values, options, and course of action.

Ethical: Need we say more? Surprisingly, yes. Taking the time to learn a Code of Ethics, such as the one taught in ICF-approved coach training, means considering others and how we treat them. Ethics make the difference for achieving long-term success.