5 July 2007

Executive coaching has been the big growth driver of executive development techniques over the last five or more years. It is flexible, targetted and relatively inexpensive - and the rewards are often seen quickly by those being coached, all of which makes them attractive to L&D professionals and those responsible for their department's amangement's development.

Novations, the Boston-based consulting and training firm have detected a change in direction of the trend. In a research survey of over 2000 HR professionals in US companies, a third of the respondents reported relying on coaching less than last year. Half relied about the same and the balance a little more.

Michelle Knox, Director of Consulting at Novations, suggested that this may just be a reaction to an aggressive growth in executive coaching in the last couple of years. "In the last five or so years coaching has been typically provided to senior management, recently it has been pushed further down the management hierarchy and this may now be being withdrawn a little".

Her feeling was that executive coaching will (and should) remain a significant part of the development provess for senior and top management and that the research results reflect a drawing back from the use of coaching lower down the management hierarchy. Know noted, however, that research still showed that there was positive ROI on coaching at all levels - but that the breadth of application (in terms of numbers of people it can be offered to) can become more unwieldy to manage at middle management levels.

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