The business coaching industry, which is getting more exposure these days, is still filled with contradictions. Coaches themselves disagree over why they’re hired, what they do, and how to measure success. Here’s what you should know.

A while ago, the Harvard Business Review conducted a survey of 140 leading coaches in order to find out more about the business coaching industry. Despite the widespread use of executive coaches, little is widely known about who they are, what they do.

Here’s what the coaches who were surveyed said companies should look for in a coach:

• 65%: Experience of coaching in similar settings (size of company, industry, challenges, etc.)
• 61%: Clear methodology
• 50%: Quality of client list
• 32%: Ability to measure ROI
• 29%: Certification in a proven coaching method
• 27%: Experience in working in a similar role as the coachee
• 13%: Experience as psychological therapist
• 2%: Background in executive search

BOTTOMLINE:Ask to see the business coach’s methodology. While you’re at it – ask if they have software that you can use every day, to make the process (methodology) easier.  If the coaches you’re looking into don’t have a repeatable methodology, and software you can use every day to make strategy execution EASIER – find another business coach. 

Often times, we’re asked “What exactly IS Six Disciplines?”

• It’s a business-building methodology that integrates the best practices of strategic planning, quality management, integrated learning, business process automation, people performance management, and measure-driven improvement.
• It’s a complete strategy execution coaching program that focuses on strategy, planning, measurement, execution, learning, and leadership development.
• It is a systematicway for your organization to learn how to set, and more importantly, to execute strategy.
• It’s a practical way for organizations that use Outlook to help every individual to learn how to execute strategy.
• It’s a repeatable, cyclical process for continual business process improvement.
• It’s a holistic way for an organization to transform itself into one that can predictably perform.
• It’s an unobtrusive way for an organization to continually improve.
• It’s a transformational way to eliminate bad habits and incorporate new best practices.
• It’s a continuous way to have your organization become more transparent and accountable.
• It’s a pervasive way for your organization to learn to communicate more clearly.

BOTTOMLINE: Six Disciplines is being adopted by an increasing number of emerging organizations that want to be transformed into one that can be predictable and profitable.  Find out what these successful companies already know.  Start 2012 the right way – start the dialog with Six Disciplines.

Each year, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for Performance Excellence is presented to a small handful of organizations who have proven themselves worthy by being consistently superior on seven criteria for overall performance excellence.  The seven criteria include: 

1. Leadership
2. Strategic Planning
3. Customer and Market Focus
4. Measurement, Analysis and Knowledge Management
5. Workforce Focus
6. Process Management
7. Business Results

Award winners must share detailed information on how they achieved outstanding performance, so that other organizations can benefit. 

• Company A (Mfg)- 110% achievement of Revenue and Profit, 79% achievement of all 2011 Goals
• Company B (Mfg) – 110%+ achievement of Revenue and Profit
• Company C (NFP) – 87 % achievement of all 2011 Goals
• Company D (Service) -100 % achievement of all 2011 Goals
• Company E Mfg) – from 2007 to 2011 – increased Revenue for $35M to $56.5M and  Profit from 4.5 % to 8.8%
• Company F (Mfg) – from 2007 to 2011 – increased Return on Assets of 5.6% to 15.4% and Profits from 4.8% to 11.4%

Eric and his coaching team’s client feedback has been outstanding, and the process is viewed as a significant aspect of their success. And this is just a small sample of the results.

If these Six Disciplines direct client results don’t tell a compelling enough story, try this one.  According to a study conducted by Quality Progress magazine, the results reveal that those organizations that followed a defined process, Total Quality Management – TQM, in this case, made a marked improvement in their quality but also their financial performance.  The article makes a direct correlation between a solid process implementation and their significant success in numerous areas – Operating Income, Sales, Total Assets, Return on Sales, Return on Assets.  These improvements are a result of following a systematic approach. Every Six Discipline client follows a systematic approach – the Six Disciplines Program.

The study points out that this systematic approach (a method) to planning and execution (a holistic, complete approach) works. In the study, they examined over 600 company’s results over 10 years.  

• What the results showed was that it doesn’t depend as much on what system they have, but that they HAVE a system.   
• It doesn’t depend on the industry.  This study covered over forty 2-digit SIC codes.  
• It doesn’t depend on size, as both large and small companies were examined in the study. 
• And it doesn’t depend on capital intensive or non-capital intensive  businesses.  

BOTTOMLINE: IT WORKS – having a systematic approach produces huge differences in performance. Let’s start the conversion with your organization – today.

There’s a lot of talk these days about accountability.

For some, it’s important for their professional lives (i.e., setting business goals, keeping on track, being responsible, etc.) For others, it’s more personal (i.e., diet, weight loss, exercising, etc.)

Whatever the case, it’s important to understand what accountability is, and ultimately, how it works. Here’s a short course:

What is accountability? Why is it important? If you walk into a room and ask ten people what accountability means, you’ll likely get ten different definitions. To some, it’s something you make people do, as in “holding people accountable”. To others, accountability means accepting responsibility, but only when a project goes off course, or it’s too late to fix. When it’s all said and done, a workable definition of accountability might include the following elements: Taking responsibility for your own behavior; doing what’s right consistently; demonstrating personal integrity, and actively participating in activities and interactions that support the strategy of your organization.

Now that we understand better what accountability is, now consider what it isn’t. Accountability is not something you “make” people do. It has to be chosen, accepted or agreed upon by the people within your organization. People must “buy into” being accountable and responsible. For many, this is a new, unfamiliar, and sometimes, uncomfortable way to work or live. Learning how to become accountable involves an element of discipline. Most importantly, individual purpose and personal meaning comes from accepting responsibility and learning to be accountable.

Holding people accountable is really about the distribution of power and choice. When people have more choice, they learn to be more responsible. When they become more responsible, they earn more freedom. By being accountable, they earn the trust of managers and coworkers. When they are more accountable, they understand their purpose and role within the organization and are committed to making things happen

How can you learn to be accountable for yourself? In reality, it’s very difficult to be accountable to yourself. Depending on your frame of reference (professional vs. personal) you need to find someone who can help you to stay on track, to stay focused. Accountability can be the catalyst for unlearning old habits, and learning new habits. For weight loss, it’s the reason that WeightWatchers is a multi-billion dollar business. It’s also no secret that the tremendous growth in business coaching (for example, like Six Disciplines) due to its success in applying external accountability coaching.

BOTTOMLINE:Accountability and positive organizational change come through a new set of conversations. So, what are you waiting for? Start the conversations in your organization. 

The business excellence model we’ve described in the past several posts (“The Four Waves Every Successful Business Goes Through” – Parts I, II, III, IV, and V) is an interesting exercise and is not based on company size. 

Every successful company once started small. The model, however, is very useful in helping leaders of businesses of any size understand where they are now, offers insight into some of the forces that got them there, and to anticipate what could happen next. 

When business leaders indicate where they are today on this quadrant, the purpose is not to label them as being “good” or “bad”. Rather, we encourage you to view this as a map that provides guidance as to where to go next. 

BOTTOMLINE: Any company that’s been around for awhile has traveled through all of these “waves” – and have spent time in all of these quadrants. The ultimate goal is to grow the capability of your organization to stay in Quadrant II (balanced and predictable strategy and execution) for longer and longer periods of time. 

Change is inevitable – failure is optional. What’s YOUR plan?

As the old saying goes: “If nothing changes, nothing changes.”

Individuals (and organizations) have only two alternatives: get better or get worse, improve or decay. And it’s a constant battle. Our choice is to manage this ongoing process and improve the things that can be improved, or ignore the process and decay. This principle is just as important in life-long learning as it is for organizational change.

The challenge for us as individuals, and for organizations, is how to keep on the “upward vector” of growth, innovation, improvement and continual learning. It can be done, but it takes positive, continuous energy and communication.

But first, we need to understand the dynamics of change.

Which Comes First: Process or Behavior?

Many leaders address the change challenge in a very clinical fashion, going first for the process, the policy or the procedure. Fixing or otherwise improving a process usually involves changing it in some way. But, which comes first: process or behavior?

Effective execution of strategy ultimately requires change first in the behaviors and attitudes of senior leadership first (then, of all employees next) before processes can be changed. One failing in most business improvement approaches is the tendency to develop new or ideal processes on paper, without addressing elements of human behavior and human nature. Perhaps it’s an over-reliance on highly data-driven methodologies like Six Sigma or lean. In these scenarios, the expectation is if we can use good quantifiable data to demonstrate that a process change will result in an improvement, then people will automatically change their behavior. On the contrary, our experience and research tells us that behavior change requires time, effort – and most importantly – discipline.

For any enduring change to take place, behaviors (habits) need to change before processes can successfully be changed.

To understand organizational change, three simple behavioral laws emerge:

• Any work behavior (verbal or physical) that works (pays off, is successful, gets us what we want) is repeated.
• Any work behavior that avoids a negative experience (criticism, needless effort, appears inept, avoids something we don’t want) is repeated.
• Any work behavior that leads directly to a negative experience (discipline, embarrassment, needless effort) is not repeated.

BOTTOMLINE: The often used blanket comment; “I don’t like change” is untrue. We generally like changes that affect us positively, but tend to resist changes that affect us in a negative way. In other words, “We don’t resist change, we resist being changed.” What people need is a new perspective on change, and how it will benefit them.