Business impact of executive coaching: demonstrating monetary value

The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of the business impact of executive coaching and enhance the utilization of coaching throughout the firm.

The ROI study consisted of a three‐step process: understand the business value expected by the firm's senior leadership; document what staff have learned from coaching; explore how staff applied what they learned from coaching to create intangible and monetary value for the business.

After the effects of coaching were isolated: monetary benefits were discounted by the isolation (interviewees were asked how much of the value did they attribute directly to their coaching experience) and error percentages; two extreme values were eliminated from the analysis, each totaling over half a million dollars; all monetary benefits were reduced by an additional 50 percent to ensure a conservative set of monetary benefits; Coaching produced intangible and monetary benefits for seven out of eight business impact areas; and ROI of $3,268,325 (689 percent)

Attaining business benefits requires taking a more proactive stance in how coaching is managed: ongoing measurement of the value of coaching should be linked to the achievement of specific business objectives and value propositions set by Booz Allen officers; periodic reviews of progress and business outcomes will suggest ways to increase business value and meet senior leader expectations.

Provides leaders of executive development programs with an approach to assess the monetary value of executive coaching.