Executive Coaching

A recent blog focused on the benefits provided by realistic job previews in finding new hires who are both a good match (and therefore likelier to stay on the job) and are prepared to be individual contributors as quickly as possible. The same idea applies recently at an executive level. The result is “executive onboarding.” Aon’s Lorraine Stomski talks about the strategic advantage of this valuable corporate initiative and other benefits it provides.

Why is Executive Onboarding important?
There is risk that new leaders face in their first months on the job. Forty percent of new hires are going to fail in their roles within the first 18 months. There’s a 50% probability that a new executive will quit, or be fired, within the first 3 years. There’s a real advantage to organizations to help that person anticipate what potential derailers there may be and to quickly help them align and develop their network of support in the organization. Executive Onboarding is a process of coaching a new leader through the transition into this new role. It’s an intensive process that helps the leader accelerate the success of transition.

What is the profile of a good coach?
Coaches need to have an excellent business background coupled with a psychology background. Coachees are executives running businesses. They have to lead strategy – they have to get people behind them to execute the strategy. So, you need a very sophisticated coach [who] understands the business perspective and the psychological perspective of what it means to be a new leader.

What difference does Executive Onboarding make?
One thing we see is that coached leaders are engaging with their key stakeholders earlier on in their onboarding process. New leaders with coaches are identifying where the collaborative efforts are required to be effective because we work in a matrix. We ask these new leaders and coaches to focus on team assimilation and the relationship that a new leader is creating with their team. And when that’s done thoughtfully, it can launch that whole organizational transformation that’s required with a new leader in a much more effective way. The bottom line is we side step a number of the derailers that are common in this type of situation and get the leader into “productive mode” more quickly. Particularly, when we have brought outside people into leader roles, one of the things the coach is able to do when working with these people is weigh the issues about how this person is finding the culture in terms of barriers to assimilation into the culture – things that they think are barriers, organizationally, to operational success. You learn from coaches through their conversations with the new leaders about broad-based issues that we might not have been so likely to see or attend to.

What expectations do you have when you put an onboarding coach in place?
When you bring in a coaching expert, you are also setting the situation up for success in a much stronger way. If we look at the overall investment that we’re making by putting together a robust onboarding plan and bringing in the external coach, it’s nothing compared to the cost that an organization is going to bear if that person doesn’t work out. So you have one big risk area when you’re going through your recruiting and hiring process and you have an equally big risk area when you’re going through the onboarding process in terms of major cost to the company. When it doesn’t work out with a new leader, it’s terribly expensive from a number of different angles. You can imagine how many different ways it can cost a company when a new leader comes on board and within two years is gone.

What else should people know to make Executive Onboarding successful in their organization?
Make sure there’s a programmatic approach so that you have metrics in place so that it’s not a hit or miss thing and somebody’s actually paying attention and holding people accountable for the job that they’re doing when onboarding new leaders. At the 18-month mark, we’re going to be tracking how these new leaders have done against their targets. That’s actually one of our key business metrics relative to the program. Be sure you have a program, a framework, a set of tools, and a methodology in place. Another thing that I find is an “unintended” value from the external coach is that they’re able to begin to ferret out all of the organizational issues that we [won't] necessarily

Lorraine Stomski, PhD. – Aon Consulting
Lorraine Stomski is a senior vice president and Practice Leader for Leadership Education and Coaching in Aon’s Talent Solutions Consulting practice. Lorraine is responsible for the design and delivery of global leadership and executive onboarding programs for top talent in organizations. Her specialties include leadership development, retention and development of top talent, executive coaching, performance management, multi-rater surveys, and selection and assessment. She is a frequent speaker on the topic of best in class practices within the field of leadership development both in the US and internationally