Janet Harvey: Hello! My name is Janet Harvey. I am a professional coach and a member of the International Coach Federation. So have you decided to hire a professional coach to help your organization? Congratulations! Research shows that professional coaching works. This is a wise decision. In this video I am going to discuss an important step of that partnership. Establishing the business objectives or strategic goals, you want a professional coach to help your organization achieve. It's a client's responsibility to decide exactly what they want to achieve. It's the coach's responsibility to help clients work toward fulfilling those objectives.

When you're setting your objectives, be as specific as possible. Setting goals and objectives at the beginning of your coaching partnership helps you and your coach establish a clear direction to move toward and it'll help motivate the people involved with reaching these goals. There are plenty of goals that groups have used professional coaching to address. Here are few examples to consider, improvements to teamwork, establishing better communication between departments and enhancing leadership skills, improving employee performance, creating a more positive corporate culture and increasing employee satisfaction from healthier relationships with peers and superiors. Biotech industry leader Genentech, a past recipient of the International Coach Federation International Prism Award, wanted to create a culture in professional coaching and development in their company's headquarters' Information Technology department. This group consisted of 400 employees. In their program applying professional coaching Genentech increased employee productivity and customer satisfaction. They improved employee communication and made a significant measurable business impact. In 2009, two years into their program, they were named the number 2 best place to work in Computerworld magazine. Setting clear and achievable goals and objectives will make it easier to measure the return on investment of your professional coaching program. In addition to the satisfaction level of staff members receiving professional coaching, Genentech recognized an increase in customer satisfaction by 10% and an increase in sales revenue by 15%. These are just two examples to help illustrate the point of setting clear objectives. Determine what you want to use professional coaching to address and create a specific measurable goal. I encourage you to use the tips in this video as you prepare your organization to work with a professional coach.