Japan has a reputation within the international business community of being an unpredictable market. Many new products that were initially hugely popular, such as electronic gadgets, have been forgotten very quickly. The lifecycle of business services can also be short.
Coaching has attracted a lot of attention in Japan over the past two to three years. It has been introduced in books and magazines, and most Japanese business people know what it involves now. Only a few have actually benefited from coaching services though, and it would be fair to say that not many business executives really understand what it is.
As with other products and services in Japan, one may wonder whether coaching will be a short-lived trend or whether it will become a mainstream practice. I believe that the next few years will be a critical time for the future of coaching in Japan.
As coaching still needs to prove itself to the Japanese business community in general, much attention is being given to the results that it can actually achieve. At the moment, coaching clients tend to come from the middle to top management level of business and of course they are all sponsored by their companies.
These sponsors, who initiate the coaching contract people such as the executives themselves and their HR departments are keen to know specifically what coaching can do: for example, what added value such an initiative brings to the business.
The problem is, this is a difficult thing for coaches to pinpoint, particularly as confidentiality agreements do not allow the coach to discuss the transformation process that the client goes through. As we all know, it is also difficult to assess the direct impact of coaching on business performance itself. Unfortunately this lack of evidence means many sponsors choose to limit or even discontinue their coaching programmes.
In my coaching practice, dialog arts, I set results indicators for each stage of the transformation process, which I then introduce to my sponsors. I use models such as the process of transformation established by Daniel H Kim, co-founder of the MIT Organizational Learning Center (rapport – awareness – behaviour – results). I then use indicators that, for each stage of the process, clarify what changes are expected and what positive impact they have on the client.
In coaching, the first stage of rapport building can take a significant amount of time. It is therefore essential to establish a good understanding with the sponsors of what the objectives of this stage are, so that they have the right expectations. Sponsors will not, as a result, judge the value of coaching on the basis of short-term tangible results, but will instead remain committed to the full process.
It is difficult to numerically assess the return on investment that coaching can bring to a business, so the relationship of trust between coach and sponsor is particularly important. Communication must take place at the beginning of the coaching agreement and continue regularly thereafter.
I believe that establishing these results indicators is key if coaching is to gain credibility and be a sustainable business service throughout Japan.
Satoko Shibutani is the principal of dialog arts. She offers one-to-one coaching to executives, politicians and artists. She also works as an HR consultant. She has recently developed personal development workshops using her research in mythology and the way myths shape culture and society. Satoko can be contacted at: shibutani@dialog-arts.net