7 Advantages of Having an External Coaching Provider

Photo by  Cesar Carlevarino Aragon on Unsplash

Broaden your leader development toolkit with external resources

As learning and development has matured, we have seen emerging trends reinforced, especially toward personalized learning that is more experiential and application-focused. Ways to make learning more experiential, personalized, and focused on application and practice aren’t just nice to have but they are a must-have.

Coaching is one method of applying learnings inside a program to the day-to-day that we’re seeing becoming more and more valuable. Unfortunately, coaching’s use is behind all other forms of learning (especially classroom, which is still most frequently used).

Source: 2016-2017 Brandon Hall Group, Training Benchmarking Survey 

What is happening organizationally to create this gap?

While more and more organizations are considering investing in programs to develop their own internal coaches (such as an internal coach certification one client has put in place to support a desired culture of coaching), many others may have a perceived lack of resources, whether that’s time or coaches who are equipped to help participants. 

If that is the case, consider that a perfect opportunity to consider an external coaching provider, with expertise and experience to more cost-effectively ramp up the organizational coaching opportunities – potentially saving time and long-term budget.

Here are 7 benefits of a centralized, outsourced coaching process:

1. Common approach and process for all coaching engagements: With an outsourced provider, all participants and coaches follow the same process and approach to coaching. Each participant–across countries, divisions, plants, and levels–gains from a common development plan and tools followed by all other participants.
2. Coaching partner gains institutional knowledge: As a long-term partner, your coaching firm gains knowledge over time that adds value to participants. Coaches working with many participants are able to connect the dots across the organization and refer back to knowledge they’ve gained from other participants. In addition, central information from coaches can give insight back to the business about challenges participants face or support they may need.
3. Organizational efficiency: One of the clearest advantages to the organization is the time and energy saved by not needing to recruit and manage a diverse group of coaches. Your coaching partner is able to retain a cadre of high-level coaches to meet the needs of potential and current participants in a coaching program, providing a variety of coaches that would be challenging to sustain internally.
4. Aggregate data: Across a development time period, the coaching partner is able to aggregate and report data on outcomes for coaching participants and provide that data to the business.
5. Determine the right type of engagement: The partner firm can draw from experience with other participants and selection criteria to determine the right type of engagement for each participant’s unique situation, from development to performance goals. In addition, the partner firm can suggest the timing and length of engagement that might best fit the needs of the coachee.
6. Drawing connections: Experienced coaching partners are able to connect coaching to other leadership development or succession processes to best meet the businesses’ goals and needs with a long-term perspective.
7. Agility and responsiveness: As an outside firm, coaching partners are able to adjust quickly and respond to just-in-time needs with prepared coaching and development processes, as well as coaches that can be called upon when needed.

At FlashPoint, one thing we firmly believe is that there is no silver bullet to leader development–no one tool can transform a leader and we will never find a one-size-fits-all solution. But we do see strong correlation between multifaceted programs with a variety of development options and participant success. 

And, as the data suggests above, coaching is seen as the #1 method to help participants apply what they’ve learned through whatever development program they’ve been involved with. Isn’t it time to deliver on this reinforcement tool with the full strength of the expertise and experience provided by an outsourced team of coaches?