Mark Hillman, Ph.D.
Executive Consultant
What is being said in the media
about Executive Coaching?
Executive Coaching is receiving recognition around the world for the impact it can have on both an individual and the organization in which that individual works. Here is some recent media coverage about personal coaching and executive coaching:
"Who, exactly, seeks out a coach?.Winners who want even more out of life." - Chicago Tribune
"The hottest thing in management is the executive coach.Coaches are everywhere these days. Corporate coaches are in such demand that they can charge from $600 to $2,000 a month for three or four 30- to 60-minute phone conversations."- Fortune
"Part therapist, part consultant, part motivational expert, part professional organizer, part friend, part nag - the personal coach seeks to do for your life what a personal trainer does for your body."- Kim Palmer, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune
"People who want to stand out at work or face a job crisis increasingly turn to career coaches. There are now an estimated 10,000 coaches nationwide, up from 5,300 in 1998."- The Wall Street Journal
"Personal coaches are a hot commodity among executives these days. Never mind the mansion, the Mercedes, the membership in the exclusive country club. In corporate America today, the sign that you have truly arrived - or at least that you are being groomed for arrival - is an executive coach. Your own personal coach, that is. Even if the coach's assignment is to render you less obnoxious, his or her presence at your elbow signals that you are regarded by the company as entirely too valuable to fire or shoot."- Training
"'Very Satisfactory'.This was the way clients most frequently rated the overall effectiveness of their coaching experience on a 5-point scale, where 4 was very satisfactory. The positive image of executive coaching in business media and the continued growth of the practice are supported by client experience."- Organizational Dynamics
"Coaching can certainly help you strengthen your sense of self-worth, focus on your goals - and get there, fast."- The London Daily Telegraph
"People usually turn to coaches for professional and career growth. They want help in setting goals, solving problems or acquiring new skills. But business coaching often leads to personal insights. Clients are better able to deal with obstacles and change. It's easier to balance work life with their personal life. And in some cases, it gives them the courage to pursue dream."- The Arizona Republic
"I first heard about personal coaches five years ago - at the same time personal fitness coaches were beginning to flex their muscles. The two fields are related: coaches in both areas help you achieve your potential.Personal coaches provide powerful professional insights. My personal advice: Get one."- Chicago Tribune
"Today's managers, professionals, and entrepreneurs are hiring coaches to help them with time management, a change in career, or balancing their work and personal lives. People are looking to coaches as sounding boards and motivators who can offer a fresh perspective on career and life problems - but without the conflicting agendas of a spouse, family member, or even a mentor."- Fortune
"The number of executives hiring personal coaches is rocketing as more and more professionals turn to outside help for advice in how to manage their day, dollars, employees, develop better leadership skills and maximize effectiveness."- London Evening Standard
"If you're thinking of overhauling your career to achieve a more fulfilling life, consider joining the estimated 100,000 Americans who annually enlist the help of some 4,000 personal coaches each year."- Money
"Most leaders like executive coaching because: they receive direct one-on-one assistance from someone they respect; they don't have to leave their offices; it fits their timeframes and schedules; they can see fast results, if they're dedicated."- Training & Development
"The ROI with executive coaching is often very high - especially if you calculate the value of a high-level executive salary and the return-on-improvement in skill level and decision making."- Training & Development
"The present research demonstrated the dramatic effects of one-on-one executive coaching as a transfer of training tool.There are a number of explanations for the dramatic increase in productivity resulting from coaching."- Public Personnel Management
"Coaching is an action-oriented partnership that, unlike psychotherapy which delves into patterns of the past, concentrates on where you are today and how you can reach your goals."- Time
"Coaching is not about the past or figuring out why and how life got so complicated or overwhelming. It is about moving forward on the things that matter most to you, dissolving barriers and blocks to your own success, and designing a life that you love."- Sausalito.net
"The coaching relationship also has a unique structure. After an initial assessment of the client's situation, the coach and client set specific goals for the client. In each subsequent meeting with the client, the coach determines what goals have been met and why other goals were not. Different set of goals is agreed upon for the following meeting. The coach prods the client to keep to the action plan."- The Business Journal
"Coaches can help entrepreneurs get their personal lives in order, which can go a long way toward solving what may have looked like purely business problems."- Dale D. Bliss, Nation's Business
"Using [coaching] instead of sending executives and managers to seminars two or three times a year can be more beneficial to ongoing career development, not to mention less expensive."- "Coaches Pump Your Career into Shape," PC Week
"If you want to build your business and at the same time have a rewarding personal life, you call a coach."- Robert Schwab, "Businesses Hire Coaches to Build Winning Teams," Denver Post
"Coaching is the latest and most pervasive evolution in the self-improvement industry."- Career Confidential
"in the next few years, coaching will become the norm in the business world."- Amy Joyce, Washington Post
"[other companies] offer coaching as a prerequisite to proven managers, in the understanding that everyone can benefit from a detached observer."- Trip Gabriel, "Earning It: Personal Trainers to Buff the Boss's People Skills," New York Times
"The goal of coaching is the goal of good management - to make the most of an organization's valuable resources."- J. Waldroop & T. Butler, "The Executive as Coach," Harvard Business Review
"Executive coaches are not for the meek. They're for people who value unambiguous feedback. All coaches have one thing in common, it's that they're ruthlessly results oriented."- Claire Tristan, Fast Company
"After all, don't we all benefit from encouragement, objectivity and structure in our lives?"- Sausalito.net
"Even if executive coaching costs $50K (which it doesn't), it's barely a rounding error to invest in the coaching of a key player who has responsibility for millions of dollars and for key human resources. Coaching is a success if one direct report, who used to be intimidated to speak up, comes up with an innovative idea."- CEO, Fortune 100 Company
"I'll bet most of the companies that are in life-or-death battles got into that kind of trouble because they didn't pay enough attention to developing their leaders."- Wayne Calloway, Chairman, Pepsico Inc.
"When you understand the definition of coaching, it seems that everyone should have one!"- Sausalito.net
"Coaching usually refers to a relationship between an individual and a trained professional who work on a set of pre-defined objectives with the aim of achieving particular goals or targets. Coaching protagonists believe that as a result of this relationship, greater results can be achieved and an individual can go on to do things that would otherwise have been impossible."- "Perspectives on Coaching," Journal of Management Development, Volume 20, #5
".[A coach is] part advisor, part sounding board, part cheerleader, part manager and part strategist."- The Business Journal
"Coaches are everywhere these days. Companies hire them to shore up executives or, in some cases, to ship them out. Division heads hire them as change agents. Workers at all levels of the corporate ladder, fed up with a lack of advice from inside the company, are taking matters into their own hands and enlisting coaches for guidance on how to improve their performance, boost their profits, and make better decisions about everything from personnel to strategy."- Betsy Morris, "So You're a Player. Do You Need a Coach?" Fortune
"The leaders of organizations such as Alcoa, American Red Cross, AT&T, Ford, Northwestern Mutual Life, 3M, UPS, American Standard, the federal governments of the United States and Canada are convinced that coaching works to develop people and increase productivity. "- C2M: Consulting to Management
"Motorola say they expect to spend in the low millions this year on executive coaching for their best middle managers."- C2M: Consulting to Management
"Across corporate America, coaching sessions at many companies have become as routine for executives as budget forecasts and quota meetings."- Gary Stern, "A Coached CEO Can Be that Winning Edge" Investor's Business Daily
"The demand for Executive Coaches has skyrocketed over the past 5 years.today's executive coach (EC) is intended to help leaders and potential leaders across the rocky, wild, and challenging road of organizational growth in today's dynamic and unstable work environment..."- The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, American Psychological Association
"We've done lots of research over the past three years, and we've found that leaders who have the best coaching skills have better business results."- Tanya Clemens, V.P. of Global Executive & Organizational Development at IBM, Time
"Coaching is the only cost-effective way to reinforce new behaviors and skills until a learner is through the dangerous results dip. Once through the dip, when the new skills bring results, they will become self-reinforcing."- Training and Development Journal
"If ever stressed-out corporate America could use a little couch-time, it's now. Trust in big companies is at an all-time low. Baby-boomers have been burned; Gen Xers aren't expecting the corporation to take care of them. Under the circumstances, employees are much likelier to go outside and get independent advice to help them be better managers"- Karen Cates, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior, Northwestern University, Kellogg Graduate School of Management
"Between 25 percent and 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies use executive coaches"- Recent survey by The Hay Group, an International Human Resources consultancy
"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."- John Russell, Managing Director, Harley-Davidson Europe Ltd.
"Asked for a conservative estimate of the monetary payoff from the coaching they got, these managers described an average return of more than $100,000, or about six times what the coaching had cost their companies."- "Executive Coaching - With Returns a CFO Could Love," Fortune
"I absolutely believe that people, unless coached, never reach their maximum capabilities"- Bob Nardelli, CEO, Home Depot
"Tiger Woods has one. Pete Sampras has one. So why not small business owners?"- Charles Boisseau, "Put Me In, Coach," localbusiness.com
"Leaders view themselves more as a coach than the person in charge."-Frank Blount, former CEO of Telstra
"Most executives seek out a coach when they know they need to make improvements, but they don't know how to do it. It's like baseball, if we were swinging the bat perfectly we wouldn't have coaches."- Barbara Brannen, former Vice President of Human Resources for Qwest Communications
"Coaches provide inspiration, and consultants provide information"- Jeremy Robinson, President of Robinson Capital
"In the past, executive coaching was viewed as a perk; now companies realize it can help their bottom line"- Steven Hilferty, CEO of Silicon Valley Coaching
"You've really got to have someone from the outside who says, `All right John, what are we out to achieve? Why are these good goals? Why is this a good strategy?' he said. And then hold you accountable."- Tapei Times Online
"The hottest thing in management is the executive coach - part boss, part consultant, part therapist."- Betsy Morris, "So You're a Player. Do You Need a Coach?"- Fortune
To explore specifics on how I build an executive coaching relationship and what is involved in the actual coaching process, along with suggested time frames and fee schedules click the link below
