Coaching for success: The key ingredients for coaching delivery and coach recruitment

The selection of a coach is probably one of the few areas of recruitment or procurement which lacks
a robust and structured process. The majority of organisations select coaches based on word-of-mouth recommendation or personal relationships. We suggest a three-stage selection process that can be used by individuals to select their own coach, or someone selecting on behalf of their organisation:

Stage 1: Long list to short list
▶ What experience of coaching does the coach have?

▶ Can the coach demonstrate an understanding of the leadership challenges in your industry?
▶ What training do they have?
▶ What ethical standards do they work to?
▶ What supervision does the coach have in place?

Stage 2: Getting down to the last few
▶ What coaching methodologies does the coach use, when and why?
▶ What price do they charge?

Stage 3: Final selection
▶ What does the coach believe they can achieve for their individual coachee?
▶ What do they believe they can achieve for the organisation?
▶ Will the coach and coachee get on?

We also suggest that competency frameworks can help to assess and compare competence between coaches, the leading global coaching bodies all publish coach standards. We have used the five leading frameworks to propose a behaviourally anchored rating scale (BARS). This uses three anchor points, from Starting coaching journey at the bottom, to Moving towards competence and then Moving towards mastery at the top of the scale.

Each anchor point
has possible behavioural indicators grouped around
six factors:

▶ Establishing a clear contract
▶ Building a trusting relationship
▶ Facilitating agenda
▶ Facilitating reflection and learning
▶ Managing emotional and organisational boundaries

▶ Reviewing outcomes.

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