Training Blog

The economy has companies cutting back, tightening belts, and looking for ways to get more out of their employees. Coaching, as ever, is part of that equation. But for some companies “coaching” does not mean hiring “a coach,” but rather training employees to coach themselves.

“This requires a new paradigm in coaching. Hiring one-to-one coaches is expensive. Coaching employees one at a time is slow,” said Carter McNamara, partner at Authenticity Consulting, which provides instruction in peer coaching. “Peer Coaching Groups are low-cost, effective, easy to measure outcomes — and keep on returning benefits, whether solving real business problems on the job, managing stress, helping to internalize HR initiatives or in achieving other objectives.”

What kind of companies choose peer coaching over one-to-one?

It’s not just the little guys, but rather, some of the biggest fish in the Fortune 500—corporations like BP and Microsoft, both of whom turned to Authenticity to develop peer coaching programs.

“The Peer Coaching experience…has huge value for the participants and our company,” said Karan Rhodes, Global Program Manager of Leadership Development at Microsoft. “In the first year, the program’s evaluation score was 98%.”

At Microsoft, the commitment to peer coaching extends beyond the company itself; Microsoft has established a peer coaching program used in schools across the country, providing coaching to teachers in an effort to ultimately help students achieve.

“Coaching provides the ‘missing link’ between more traditional means of professional development and the development of exciting, engaging and purposeful technology integration into the classroom,” said Kyle Kinoshita, Principal at Meadowdale Elementary School in Lynnwood, Washington.

The Washington program was studied during the 2007-2008 academic year, and Dennis Small, director of the Educational Technology Department at the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction said peer coaching worked in two ways. “Coaches, and the teachers they coached, have improved their ability to integrate technology into standards-based curriculum and increased student engagement,” said Small. “And, two, all our peer coaches felt that greater student engagement led to greater comprehension and a rise in technology proficiency among students.”

Microsoft supports the peer coaching program for school teachers with a dedicated website, a series of coaching models designed for specific school roles (librarian, science teacher, etc.) and a full complement of coaching tools, including access to research on the effectiveness of coaching.

In Washington State, 280 school teachers are enrolled in an enhanced version of Microsoft’s peer coaching program that extends the training from eight days to ten. Teachers are chosen as leaders, and then bring their coaching skills back to their schools to coach colleagues.

Elsewhere, peer coaching is being used in specific classroom situations, including a three-state initiative to bring peer coaching to students affected by autism. The Interactive Collaborative Autism Network (ICAN) is funded by the U.S. Department of Education and includes a program of peer coaching to teachers working with autistic students in Kansas, Connecticut, and Minnesota.

For Carter McNamara, the logic of bringing coaching to companies and schools through peer coaching programs is essentially, a no-brainer.

“Why not teach employees how to quickly coach themselves and each other? Why use coaching only for problem solving?” said McNamara. “Why not use coaching also to enrich trainings, cultivate networks and share support?”

These questions are being asked—and answered—by companies turning to peer coaching as part of their plans to make employees at all levels more productive and effective in a down economy.

Pat Brinton, Senior Leadership Development Consultant at BlueCross/BlueShield turned to peer coaching, not just among upper level executives, but across various groups and applications. “I used it for our Mentoring Program for Advanced Leadership,” said Brinton. “Even the VP facilitators get as much out of it as the participants in their groups.”

Executives turning to peer coaching instead of traditional one-to-one coaching say the benefits—instead of affecting just one employee at a time—spread quickly throughout entire groups.

“I was also surprised at how fast peer coaching built a level of trust within groups,” said Melissa Debowski, Director, Leadership Development and Learning at BP.

Can coaches get behind this “new paradigm” of coaching? Or will peer coaching programs at major corporations be seen instead as a threat to traditional one-to-one coaching–with employees getting access not to an experienced coach, but rather to a trained colleague?

Can a peer coach match the effectiveness of a full-time business coach?