Play Of The Day

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When these corporate higher-ups describe their coaching sessions, they sound suspiciously--well, shrinky. But coaching is not therapy, practitioners insist. Neither is it mentoring, training or some other form of repackaged management skills. Actually, it's a grab bag of techniques that combine bits of all these with "nuggets of wisdom" from arenas as diverse as football and 12-step programs. Sometimes what a coach does, says Kathleen Phillips, an in-house coach at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, the former management-consulting arm of Ernst & Young, is help a client see a problem--or a problem job--a different way. In that way, say proponents, coaching helps shore up weak points in their employees as well as build on their strengths.

Coaches may use some of the 27 prepackaged Coach U assessment "programs" that resemble school workbooks, with fill-ins and progress charts. The CleanSweep program, for example, lists four categories: physical environment, well-being, money, relationships--with 25 statements in each, alongside little boxes to be checked if true. These range from "My teeth and gums are healthy" to "My investments do not keep me awake at night" and "I receive enough love from people around me to feel good." You're not allowed to check one as true until it is virtually always true, and the program, which promises that it "can be completed in less than one year," asserts, "You have more natural energy when you are complete with your environment, well-being, money and relationships." Once you have swept clean, you can go on to the NeedLess Program, which makes the incredible claim that you can learn how to have all your needs permanently met. It takes you through the steps of identifying 20 unmet needs, reducing them to the four most important ones and then redirecting your behavior and that of those around you to get them met.

Whatever the methods they employ, many of those who go through the programs persuasively describe positive results: practical solutions to problems, increased job satisfaction, even advancement. Moreover, although there are no direct data, says Harvard's Thomas, corporations believe that coaching helps keep employees and that the dollar investment in it is far less than the cost of replacing an employee. Still, in encouraging folks to follow their feelings and develop their strengths, corporations are taking a risk: that their most valued employees may be coached right out the door. Companies accept this risk--because they have to. "I expect job movement, job redefinition, attrition," says Creswell. "Those are the realities. It's the people who decide."