Executive Coaching - Worth The Price?

In a January 2009 article "What Can Coaches Do for You?" published in the Harvard Business Review, HBR conducted a survey of 140 leading coaches and invited five experts to comment on the findings.

Some of the more interesting findings:

• The reasons companies engage coaches have changed.
• Ten years ago, most companies engaged a coach to help fix toxic behavior at the top.
• Today, most coaching is about developing the capabilities of high-potential performers.

Do companies and executives get value from their coaches? When HBR asked coaches to explain the healthy growth of their industry, they said that clients keep coming back because “coaching works.”

BOTTOMLINE: "Coaching as a business tool continues to gain legitimacy, but the fundamentals of the industry are still in flux. In this market, as in so many others today, the old saw still applies: Buyer beware."