The Benefits of a Coaching Culture

Building an internal coaching culture involves a proactive approach and a dedication to continuous learning. Similar to hospitals’ approach to prioritizing early intervention, personalized treatment, and ongoing support, institutions that have established a coaching culture proactively partner with employees to address workplace challenges before they escalate.

Increasingly, organizations are trading in reactive, top-down leadership approaches for a proactive, growth-oriented coaching model. Embracing a coaching culture allows organizations to be agile amid rapid change while nurturing a workplace environment where employees feel valued and heard.

As a result, teams are more productive and efficient, and experience significantly less turnover.

What Is a Coaching Culture?

Trust, accountability, and encouragement are the foundations of a coaching culture.

Within a coaching culture, individuals and teams receive support for ongoing learning and growth and feel empowered to engage in open communication and feedback about processes and procedures for the good of the organization.

The most commonly reported benefits of a coaching culture include:

• Strengthened leadership within the organization.
• Enhanced team and employee performance.
• Higher retention rates for valued staff.
• Increased productivity and profitability.

How MD Anderson Improved Employee Engagement Through Coaching

As a globally renowned oncology center, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MD Anderson) excels at cancer patient care, research, education, and prevention. The institution’s sole mission is to end cancer for patients and their families around the world.

In an effort to strengthen engagement among its employees, in 2017, the institution’s leaders launched an initiative to better understand factors contributing to turnover and employee engagement among its staff of 19,500 people, which at the time included more than 1,700 faculty members.

An institution-wide survey asked staff about challenges, job satisfaction, and perceptions about workplace culture. Results revealed favorability ratings for employee engagement at 67%, team collaboration at 65%, and 65% of employees expressed a favorable view of teamwork within the institution.

Simultaneously, MD Anderson leaders conducted an extensive review of published research, which confirmed coaching could create the transformational change necessary to achieve the institution’s mission of eliminating cancer in Texas, the U.S., and worldwide. Multiple studies validated that coaching produces positive, sustainable behavior change.

However, the true impact of improved leader behavior extends beyond individual transformation and trickles down to drive higher overall effectiveness, increased performance and productivity, job satisfaction, and, as a result, less turnover.

Combining results from the staff survey and the body of research, MD Anderson executives identified a need to focus on leader retention within the first two years of a person’s start date.

Launching an Institution-Wide Coaching Program

MD Anderson designed a plan to bolster engagement, improve morale, and reduce turnover. One aspect of the comprehensive plan involved developing an internal ICF-accredited coaching program led by MD Anderson’s Leadership Institute. The Leadership Institute offers a wide variety of leadership development opportunities including coaching and focuses on enabling leaders to navigate leadership challenges and opportunities in service of MD Anderson’s mission to end cancer. It provides a defined system to develop current leaders and create comprehensive talent pathways for MD Anderson employees. The coaching program initially launched as a five-month framework and quickly expanded to 10 months, comprising 105 hours of training. The mission of the internal coaching program is to develop “relentlessly learning leaders.”

The core curriculum teaches fundamental leadership skills and behaviors necessary to succeed at the current leadership level. The first level of learning prepares leaders for advancement before opportunities arise.
The program features a strategic balance of individual and team-based growth. Individuals learn core leadership competencies, including greater self-awareness. Team-based curricula reinforce collaboration, emphasizing that no one works alone and highlighting how the team contributes to the organization’s mission and vision.

Nearly 45 leaders participate in the program annually. A colleague must nominate a participant, who must then receive approval from their manager and division. An internal CoachFINDER tool — a platform to match coaches and coachees — has leveled the playing field for coaching access to encourage employees to seek growth while enabling coaches to gain practical experience supporting their ICF credentials.

Once employees begin the program, they meet with their coach at least once every three to four weeks during the initial phase of the engagement. Then, sessions move to a monthly cadence or stretch to five to six weeks between meetings.

Defining Measurable Benefits and Outcomes

Critical to understanding the success of the program’s intended impact on engagement, organizational leaders used measurement tools to assess the benefits of implementing coaching initiatives.

At MD Anderson, the results of the initial efforts were clear. A 2023 follow-up survey revealed that MD Anderson has experienced a:

• 48% decrease in turnover among coached leaders (12%) compared to the control group (23%).
• 41% higher promotion rates for coached individuals (31%) versus their control counterparts (22%).
• 86% favorability in teamwork in 2023, up from 65% in 2017.
• 84% employee engagement in leadership, rising from 61% in 2017 to 84% in 2023.
• 86% team collaboration, an increase from 65% in 2017.

Today, coaching is seen as essential to leadership at MD Anderson and is integrated into annual performance evaluations. Leaders are assessed on “Capacity Building,” which includes the competency of “Coach and Develop.” The impact of coaching is evident, with manager ratings for Capacity Building consistently averaging between 2.50 and 2.55 on a 3.00 scale from 2021 to 2023.

Not only is MD Anderson seeing results internally with increased retention, engagement, and internal promotion rates, it is recognized as an industry leader for its program. Their coaching program has earned multiple awards including an ICF Coaching Impact Award for Distinguished Organization.