Corporate Coaching: Internal Mentoring and External Coaching

Corporate coaching provides organizations with a competitive edge by strengthening leaders at every level.  Organizations that invest in corporate coaching services develop stronger leaders, improve communication, increase collaboration, and build a culture of accountability that drives long-term business success.

Leadership training educates current leaders and prepares future leaders with the knowledge, skills, and behaviors needed to lead more effectively.

Corporate Coaching can be roughly divided into two directions: In house training and external coaches.  Look at how both kinds of coaching builds leaders and complement one another.

Internal Corporate Coaching and Mentoring

Here are some inherent advantages of home-grown corporate coaching and mentoring.

1. Close at Hand.

   Your in-company corporate coaches and mentors are close at hand.  They can interact with budding leaders at every turn.  They are near enough to contact with a simple question or concern.  Those being mentored can chat over lunch for quick feedback or do discuss the next skill development.

2. Knows Lingo, Tribe and Culture.

   Insiders know the workings of the company.  They can be extremely helpful in assisting new hires understand the corporate culture.  They assist in knowing the key players and who can always be counted on.  Because they are on the inside, no time needs to be taken explaining the acronyms or the processes.

3. Built into the system.

   The best of corporate coaching is built into company protocol.  Top talent is automatically assigned a mentor.  Succession planning recognizes skill and leadership gaps and has a process in place to fill those needs.  Regularly occurring feedback unearths skill sets mastered or in need of strengthening among employees and orderly training corrects weaknesses and builds on competencies

External Corporate Coaching

When companies hire a corporate coach they gain a new and different set of strengths.

1. Fresh Ideas.

   Corporate Coaches from the outside are not immersed in the corporate culture. They see things with fresh eyes. And they can actually observe the company organization objectively. At times the system may be part of the problem and coaches can free leadership from the limitations of tradition.

2. Extensive “tool-box.”

   Corporate coaches bring widely divergent ways of thinking, acting, and processing to the table.  When confronted with problems, sometimes the old methods of solving them are ineffective.   As executives learn to use new “tools” they are better able to solve obstinate problems.

3. Their Expertise.

   These Coaches have invested years in training to be able to pass this expertise on to their clients.   This is their job and their strength.  Unlike the coaches and mentors inside the company, who primarily have other responsibilities, for professional coaches — this IS their responsibility.  They study best methods, they glean skills, organization, communication, and problem solving from experience, study, and research. All of their years of knowledge about leadership are available to their clients.  It is like concentrated intelligence. This distilled knowledge invigorates management. It motivates. It produces results.

4. Proven Track Record.

   Outside coaching brings results. “In a recent study, training alone improved leadership skills by 22%. When combined with Executive Coaching, improvement jumps to 77%,” says Fortune Magazine.  MetrixGlobal LLC. Say, “Companies who invested in executive business coaching received an average return of $7.90 for every $1 invested.”

Both kinds of corporate coaching advance the skills and leadership of any organizations key players. Neglect either kind and you limit your top talent.

The Value of Corporate Coaching

John Russell, Managing Director, Harley-Davidson Europe Ltd. sums up the value of corporate coaching: “I never cease to be amazed at the power of the coaching process to draw out the skills or talent that was previously hidden within an individual, and which invariably finds a way to solve a problem previously thought unsolvable.”

To learn how easy it is to hire a skilled executive corporate coach to lead your company to a greater competitive edge contact Joel.