Going deep in the business leadership game

An R& D executive for a large area company can’t seem to convey his department’s vision to sales and manufacturing staff no matter how passionately he presents it. Partners in an established accounting firm are baffled by the fact that staff members would rather walk on nails than work with them on projects. A manager of an automobile dealership works 12 hours a day but can’t seem to accomplish what he needs to get done.

But more and more business executives are finding help in a one-on-one service once relegated to sports and fitness. The business or executive coach has emerged as an increasingly common leadership tool. In fact, one area coaching firm, Forward Motion Coaching of West Boylston, estimates that major, multi-national companies will spend more than $1 billion on such services in 2006.

And if the experiences of business leaders like Scott Barry, general manager of Long Subaru in Webster, and Larry Schwartz, partner at Westboro-based Carlin, Charron and Rosen LLC, are any indication (see sidebar), it is a service that executives shouldn’t be shy about using. As Barry points out, "Tiger Woods is the best golfer in the world, and he has a golf coach."

Barry’s coach, Bonni Carson DiMatteo of Wellesley-based Atlantic Consultants, who has provided such services for 20 years, says business leaders are more open to being coached since the dot.com bust. "People started to see they weren’t infallible, they weren’t invincible and they need a sounding board," she says. Since then, DiMatteo and other area coaches say, they’ve seen an increased demand for coaching services.

What is business coaching?

Business or executive coaches are a varied lot, with seemingly as many different approaches and angles as there are individual executives to coach. And since there are no definitive criteria for business coaches (several national groups do offer certification), they admit that just about anyone can hang out a shingle as a coach.

Area coaches agree generally on a description of their work: one-on-one interactions with individual executives or business owners. Coaches analyze clients’ needs, establish their goals, and help them come to workable solutions.

Many coaches begin the process with what is called a "360" survey in which the client’s subordinates, superiors and peers are asked to answer questions about them. But key to coaching, DiMatteo and other coaches note, is listening to the client, determining their belief system and how they get things done, and helping them achieve goals through self enlightenment.

Attaining a client’s goal might mean getting the client to realize employees can’t read their mind, getting that person to delegate more to staff, or even, for one of DiMatteo’s client’s, having that person "practice smiling."

Coaches may do their work in person, over the phone, via e-mail or a combination of all three. Most suggest a minimum coaching period of six to eight months and meet with clients every two or three weeks for one to two hours a session. Prices vary but can range from $3,000 to $6,000 for the initial coaching period or from $150 to $300 an hour.

DiMatteo works with a range of clients, from executives from Fortune 500 companies to those running small businesses with a handful of employees. She focuses on many individual goals, with one common denominator: the wish to improve performance. Clients have come to understand that coaching is often the most effective form of management training, she says.

Top among the most common areas in which business leaders need coaching help, experts agree, is communication.

Sideline specialists

Some coaches have a particular practice niche. Northboro-based Executive and Leadership Coach Linda Cohan, who worked with Boston accountant Larry Schwartz, stresses "emotional intelligence" in her work with executives of companies from sole proprietorships to 300-employee firms. In its simplest form, she notes, emotional intelligence is the ability to "work and play well with others." She helps executives learn to better control their moods and emotions and better relate to their employees.

Bill van Achen, president of Sudbury-based Strategic Management Resources, specializes in owners of privately held companies in his 12-year-old coaching practice. Currently, he is coaching some 30 business owners who, he says, are often very good at what they got into business for but not good at day-to-day business tasks and interactions. What’s more, he says, most business owners "are a pretty lonely lot" and don’t have anyone to discuss their decisions with.

Van Achen says most of his clients seek him out because they are facing "pain and discomfort" in their business. It could be a loss of sales or a high employee turnover rate. Coaches aren’t omniscient sources of business advice, van Achen says, but are "guides" who know the tools to uncover the truth about what a leader needs to improve.

In fact, one of the more difficult aspects of being a coach, says Bill Sex, president of Marlboro-based New England Coaching, is sometimes seeing what a client needs to do "and having the ability to stay quiet" and let the client gain that insight themselves.

Another important part of the coaching process, Sex adds, is holding clients accountable for achieving goals that they committed to.

A coaching evolution

The business-coaching trend started 10 to 15 years ago, according to Sex, as an outgrowth of business consulting. Whereas a consultant advises companies on specific areas of expertise, a coach is more of a "generalist" who helps an individual reach goals through self discovery.

Dominick Volini, PhD, head of the leadership development practice for Philadelphia-based global consulting company Right Management Consultants, with offices in Westboro, says, to a limited degree, coaching has always been a part of consulting work in an organization undergoing some sort of a change. Consultants would sit down with executives individually as part of the process. About 10 years ago, he says, it became a distinct and more rigorous aspect of leadership services.

More and more, Volini and other coaches note, companies are using such services not just to deal with problems but to be proactive in honing the leadership skills of their high-potential individuals. In a July 2005 survey of 325 organizations, Right Management found that 63 percent used coaching to develop leaders rather than correct poor management behavior.

Not just warm and fuzzy

While Volini says it has become "a badge of honor" among some executives to have one, hiring a business coach isn’t just a feel-good move for the individual executive getting the attention. It has been shown to pay off in a company’s bottom line. Right Management says coaching delivers an average return on investment of nearly 600 percent.

DiMatteo points out that being able to impact attrition at a company is one of the bottom-line benefits of a successful coaching process. She notes that it costs four times an employee’s annual salary to replace them.

Like anything else, companies need to hire the right coach. Experts suggest seeking coaches with formal training or certification, checking references and making sure they select a coach with the right personal chemistry.

While more business leaders are using business coaches these days, the practice is still not widespread and sometimes even secretive. "I’m like the invisible man sometimes and I’m fine with that," Sex says.

Micky Baca can be reached at mbaca@wbjournal.com

SIDEBAR: A tale of two leaders

Coaches build better managers from the sidelines

You could say that Scott Barry, general manager at Long Suburu in Webster, and Larry Schwartz, a partner at Carlin, Charron and Rosen LLC’s Boston office, were at opposite ends of the management-style spectrum when they respectively sought the help of an executive coach.

Barry is the classic nice guy, a factor that, he admits, has somewhat hampered his management work, along with a tendency to have trouble focusing on what he needed to achieve. Schwartz, a 30-year accountant and CCR partner since 1987, says he was abrasive and insensitive with employees without really realizing it, and they, in turn, just didn’t like him very much.

Both men now say that working with a business coach has transformed them into better managers and happier people and left them with tools to pursue more fulfilling futures in their companies.

Refocused to succeed

Having earned a MBA, Barry says he knew he had the skills to manage but wasn’t always using them effectively before working with coach Bonni Carson DiMatteo. He also had trouble focusing. "You’d run around all day long and put in a 12-hour day. But instead of getting things done, you’d be putting out fires," he says.

After working his way through the ranks at R.H. Long Motor Sales for eight years, Barry, age 40, is in line as the person likely to assume the executive manager role in the company when his boss – 20 years his senior – moves on. When his boss suggested he use the services of an executive coach nearly two years ago, Barry, a general sales manager at the time, says he was open to the idea.

Meeting with him once a month for nearly two years, DiMatteo, he says, really help him break down his shortcomings and bring together the skills he did have to better manage his 35-to-40-person workforce. She helped him hone time-management and organizational skills. And she led him to discover the key reason for his lack of concentration, which turned out to be Attention Deficit Disorder, for which he now takes medication.

DiMatteo also coached Barry in directing employees, measuring their performance and increasing his expectation of them. Barry says he’s now able to make the people around him better and, while he’s still a nice guy, he has set limits on what he will tolerate.

The coaching process, which concluded recently, cost $10,000 for the first year, Barry says, but was "absolutely worth it."

A happier success story

Larry Schwartz, 57, had tried using an executive coach two years prior to working with Linda Cohan of Northboro over the past year. The first time around, he says, it wasn’t a good fit, and he abandoned his effort to improve his relationship with employees through coaching.

But, Schwartz says, the problems between him and his staff continued. They didn’t want to work on teams with him. They didn’t trust him. So, in the spring of 2005, he decided to try the process again.

This time, Schwartz says, things clicked. Cohan, he says, not only gave him insights into how his behavior was affecting employees but also led him to explore such questions as how he defined happiness and success. Schwartz says he never thought about things like the fact that success for him meant having the trust and respect of people around him. He also found he likes teaching others and doing work that helps people.

"I had no clue that I wasn’t having fun," Schwartz says.

Schwartz met with Cohan two hours each month for a year, concluding in April. He did exercises with word-association flash cards and kept a journal. Cohan helped him be more emotionally open, Schwartz says, to be a better listener and to strive to help workers rather than getting angry at them.

Now, Schwartz is getting much better reviews from employees and is much more effective in handling management issues. He says he’d recommend coaching to other business executives.

"I got a lot of help and if I can give this to someone so they can get some help, that’s a valuable thing," Schwartz says.

M.B.