Los Angeles, CA—Bonnie and Gary Maitlen both work as “coaches,” offering their skills, insight and guidance to those who can most benefit from their help. Gary has worked for years mentoring Boy Scout groups and is now working with local community organizations to organize a formal mentoring program for area teens. Meanwhile, Bonnie offers mentoring of a slightly different sort—she is a senior master coach and regional leadership specialist for leading career services company Lee Hecht Harrison, where she helps executives and other professionals to see potential in themselves that might otherwise go unrecognized.

This second type of coaching is invaluable for today’s high-level executives who must operate in a more complex workplace that requires its leaders to be able to succeed under pressure and produce quick results, according to Maitlen. “Leaders must be flexible and innovative while simultaneously adhering to time-tested core values,” she says. “Today, coaching is an added value for leaders in the workplace. It is not a sign of weakness to have a coach or a mentor—it is a sign of strength.”

That’s because today’s busy executives face a constant barrage of new challenges. In the rapidly changing job market affected by corporate downsizing, mergers, acquisitions and fierce competition, many companies are in a seemingly constant state of revision, which leaves little time for the kind of hands-on leadership or self-improvement that most executives would prefer. Gone are the days of the 40-hour workweek. Now, it can stretch into the 60-hour range on average, and executives are lucky if they can get their own work done in that time, much less have time to manage their employees from a coaching standpoint, according to Rick Junius, executive vice president of the company’s Western region. “Organizations these days are lean and mean, and most people have so much on their plate, that while they would like to be able to coach their team members, they are starting to look to outside sources for mentoring,” Junius says.

Coaching and mentoring have taken on whole new connotation in the modern workplace. “Thirty years ago people were promoted due to tenure, not necessarily because they were great at managing people,” Junius says, “and the opinion of coaching has come full circle in corporate America. Today, it means that a company is interested in investing in its employees’ high potential. I’d say a healthy 80 percent of coaching efforts now focus on improving valued employees, with perhaps only 10-15 percent focused on salvaging them.”

The following are some principles of successful coaching from the experts at Lee Hecht Harrison:

·Coaching is action-plan driven. The coach and the executive should plan a developmental schedule and focus on the impact that the executive’s behavior has on the work team.

·Coaching requires candid feedback and supportive confrontation: Coaches must be able to ask powerful questions in a non-judgmental fashion while listening carefully.

·Coaches must have a high level of credibility and be valued as a resource: While some companies prefer to offer internal coaches, external coaching can offer a sense of confidentiality that allows the executive to feel more comfortable discussing their weaknesses.

·Coaching deals with clients who want to move to a higher level of professional functioning: Coaching often focuses on specific, narrowly defined issues that are targeted to provide the most improvement.

According to Junius, coaching is a way to enhance skill sets, expand potential and make employees more effective in their role in the company. “We’ve done studies where we’ve found that one of the major ways executives end up leaving their companies is not because of compensation, but because of a low level of challenge and recognition,” Junius says. “Executives have listed compensation as third and fourth on their list of importance in their careers, with development and challenge listed as number one. Companies that allow individuals to grow as professionals and challenge them to improve are not only ensuring higher satisfaction and retention possibilities, but are also protecting a tremendous investment.”

The impact of coaching can now be measured in hard dollars—millions of them if you lose a valued salesperson or executive, according to Maitlen. “From a pure dollar standpoint, there is tremendous value in retaining important employees,” says Maitlen. “The cost of having to replace a key team member is immeasurable. The departure of a middle manager can cost the company between one-quarter and one million dollars when you factor in the loss of productivity while they contemplate their exit as well as after they leave, and the recruitment process for a replacement candidate—and sometimes morale is so affected that one person goes and three others follow. The solution can be coaching and development programs that can address problems before they begin while encouraging employees to achieve their full potential.” Established in 1974, Lee Hecht Harrison is the leading global career services company specializing in providing outplacement, leadership development/coaching and career development services. Its focus is helping organizations and their employees deal with career transitions, career management and the effect of change on careers, work and employability. With worldwide office locations, Lee Hecht Harrison's experience includes helping companies of all sizes effectively manage change, downsizing and internal career mobility . Western Region offices include Irvine, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Riverside, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Walnut Creek, and Woodland Hills, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Phoenix, Arizona. Lee Hecht Harrison is a division of Adecco S.A., the world's largest employment services company with over 6,000 offices in more than 60 countries.

Contact: Amy Brown (ext. 106) or Christina Jorgensen (ext. 103) Drizen-Dohs Corporate Communications Phone: (818) 772-9555