When Charlie at Aziz Corporate first asked me to write something for this edition, I was taken back to when I first started formally executive coaching in 1998 following my initial training. I had been already working for 11 years in finance leadership positions as a management accountant (and had qualified as a Fellow of CIMA), and then had been a strategic management consultant for the following 6 or so years. Once I took up coaching, HR directors at the time were often asking me to talk about how well their leaders (i.e. my coachees) were doing and were surprised, and probably frustrated, that, for confidentiality reasons, I was not prepared to discuss that. I also found myself having to explain the reality that, actually, as a coach it was not me that could see the impact on performance and that they were actually in a much better situation to see that change. In trying to support them, however, I developed the table below which explained what sort of things they might look out for that would tell them whether progress was being made; i.e. they could establish for themselves the ROI of coaching.
The ROI of U might use a similar technique and it might be valuable to add purpose and meaning into it. Here are some of the questions that come to my mind (and hopefully will be useful) in establishing what real return the organisation might be getting from your contribution.
- What real meaning does your work hold for you and what real impact would you love to have either on the organisation’s achievements and performance, or on the satisfaction and fulfilment of your customers, or indeed on society at a wider level (worth considering people, nature and planet)? What sort of visible results in the organisation would tell you that you are achieving that impact?
- If you were not doing your job as well as you are, how would that be noticed in the organisation and what impact might that have on the results and performance of the organisation?
- What impact are you, and the way in which you work, having on other people in the organisation? Who is inspired by you, developed by you, supported by you and given direction by you and what impact does that have on the way they perform? How might that show up and what impact might that have on the tangible outcomes in the organisation, on the fulfilment and satisfaction of the customer or on society?
- Who might be able to challenge and support you as do this enquiry on yourself? Who will be able to see what impact you have and give you honest feedback as to what the overall impact might be?
As you complete your self-examination, I urge you to bring honesty and genuine curiosity to it, with a sense of possibility rather than be too definitive, judgemental or defensive. While you do it, you might become aware of further personal development that you would like or need and the consider how you might go about getting that development. This might take the form of a new experience, some mentoring, a specific training programme, some friendly challenge from those around you or, indeed, some coaching.
