coaching

The Executive Coaching Business – Interview Stefan Stenzel

Dirk VerburgLeave a comment

Only a decade ago, executive coaching was associated with either very senior business leaders coached by well-known authors and thought leaders, or with leaders who were struggling in their roles and were given a coach as a last resort.

Today, executive coaching has become mainstream — and it has changed significantly. 

First, despite the name, it is no longer the prerogative of C-level executives or their direct reports. Many companies now offer coaching to leaders at all levels of the organisation. 

Second, it is no longer seen as a remedy for underperformance. Instead, executive coaches are increasingly viewed the way we view coaches in sport: helping already high-performing individuals to become even better. As an executive coach myself for instance, I support business leaders at all levels with a wide range of challenges: transitioning into new roles, defining strategies for their teams and organisations, enhancing the collaboration with their own leaders and teams, and navigating change.

As a result, executive coaching has evolved from a niche activity into a serious industry. And, like any growing industry, this raises questions about developing and maintaining professional standards, pricing, quality and technology.

Stefan Stenzel has been active in the coaching business since the early 2000s and published ‘Die Zukunft des Coaching-Business’ (‘The Future of the Coaching Business’) in 2022. 

I recently sat down with him for two conversations to explore the state of the executive coaching business today.

In our first conversation, we focused on ‘The Executive Coaching Business’ and covered the following topics:

  • The value of executive coaching
  • Measuring the ROI of executive coaching
  • The characteristics of a good executive coach
  • Assessing the quality of an executive coach
  • Does the downward pressure on fees impact the quality of executive coaches?
  • The red and blue oceans for executive coaches
  • The place for independent coaches in the world of Digital Coaching Platforms (DCPs)
  • Face-to-face versus digital coaching
  • External coaches versus internal coaches


► You can watch or listen to a podcast with our conversation on:

➡️ Apple Podcasts

➡️ Spotify

➡️ YouTube

➡️ No time to watch or listen to podcast now? Here is a short summary of the key points of our conversation ⤵

Dirk Verburg: What is the value of executive coaching for large international organizations, and for what purposes are coaches typically engaged at companies like SAP?

Stefan Stenzel: The primary answer is innovation. Engaging external coaches provides a new perspective, time for reflection, and a “helicopter view” to address dysfunctional behavior. Coaching is highly effective when embedded into larger programs, helping leaders digest and individualize what they have learned so the knowledge sticks. It facilitates “vertical development”—thinking about how and why you think—which goes beyond normal skills training.

As leaders reach the executive level, they must shift from technical expertise to “winning the hearts, heads, and hands” of their people. At this stage, you cannot simply instruct mature people; you must influence them informally. Coaching also addresses “executive presence”—the ability to project confidence on big stages—and provides a safe space to navigate the stress and power plays inherent in high-level corporate environments.

Dirk Verburg: How can organizations measure the return on investment for coaching?

Stefan Stenzel: This is the “million-dollar question.” First, it is important to have solid descriptive measures—knowing how many coaching engagements are happening, where, and with whom. This foundation is essential, yet many companies lack it.

The “master class” involves measuring impact via correlations. However, executive coaching is often driven by the leader’s own conviction, and executives are rarely willing to fill out long questionnaires. Currently, we measure this via employee surveys focused on leadership KPIs, comparing data before and after the coaching period.

Ultimately, you must ask what will be done with the numbers. Measuring must make sense for the company. I compare coaching to car maintenance: you can skip it to save money immediately, but the eventual “repairs” or leadership failures are far more expensive. We must also challenge “status coaching,” where high fees are paid for big names without clear evidence of superior impact.

Dirk Verburg: In your professional opinion, what are the characteristics of a good executive coach, and is business acumen or content knowledge important?

Stefan Stenzel: It often starts with the “brand”—the ability to create an “eye-level” discussion where the coach is accepted by the executive. Having a similar career background can create immediate credibility and rapport.

However, a coach needs to “unlearn” the habit of giving immediate advice. I look for solid education and accreditation, such as from the ICF or DBVC. Many people have business experience but lack the formal training required to be a professional coach.

A good coach needs the self-confidence to challenge executives and deep business knowledge to offer new perspectives. If a coach does not offer innovation, they are not earning their fee. While credentials provide a foundation, the “chemistry” and rapport between the coach and the client are the final selection criteria.

Dirk Verburg: The title “Executive Coach” is not protected, and the number of coaches is mushrooming. How can organizations or individuals accurately assess coach quality?

Stefan Stenzel: Accreditations are vital because they prove the individual has undergone the hard work of formal education. These provide foundational criteria for selection.

However, even with credentials, an informed decision is necessary. In a large company, my job is to pre-select coaches to ensure quality standards are met before the coaching begins. It is like car manufacturing: you must embed quality at the beginning of the process.

Dirk Verburg: Digital coaching platforms are creating downward pressure on rates. Is coaching at risk of becoming a “hollowed-out” profession, and is it still sustainable?

Stefan Stenzel: Platforms are a natural consequence of digitalization. For the customer, they provide transparency and ease of comparison that was missing 20 years ago.

For coaches, it is harder to stand out. If you are just one of thousands on a platform, it is a “red ocean” of competition. To escape this, coaches must differentiate themselves through their brand and expertise—moving from “bestseller coaching” to “craft coaching.”

Top-tier coaches rarely need platforms because their brands are established. For others, they must treat their practice as a business. If you are a business coach, you should be able to run your own practice successfully. While platforms handle distribution and data, the core relationship between the coach and the client remains unchanged.

Dirk Verburg: Is there still a place for face-to-face coaching, or has technology made physical presence unnecessary?

Stefan Stenzel: Yes, but the customer will decide. The “art of coaching” involves blending virtual and in-person offers professionally. Face-to-face is compelling when topics become highly complex, emotional, or involve “embodiment coaching.”

There is also value in “outdoor coaching,” where fresh air and a change of environment can open a person up to new perspectives. However, because executives face heavy time pressure, coaches must be able to prove the additional value of meeting in person. Professionalism means knowing when to deviate from a digital script based on the client’s needs.

Dirk Verburg: I am skeptical about internal coaching pools regarding distance and confidentiality. Where do they work, and what are their constraints?

Stefan Stenzel: I have been an internal coach for 25 years and have rarely encountered trust issues. The real challenge is that you are part of the system. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage.

The benefit is understanding internal processes and linking coaching directly to them. The disadvantage is that you are affected by the same reorganizations as your clients. Maintaining “working distance” requires high professionalism to avoid simply being compassionate without adding a new perspective.

We have 650 internal coaches, and the company is convinced of their value. To be successful, they must be professionally educated to ensure they have a real impact while navigating the internal system.

► About Stefan Stenzel
 
Stefan Stenzel (Dipl.-Psych.) studied Organizational Psychology at Heidelberg and Mannheim with a minor in business administration. He has almost 30 years of experience in PD and OD. Since 2001 he is working at SAP SE in the role of a HR Senior Expert for Learning in the team of Global Leadership Development with varying areas of responsibilities. Based on his initial coaching training in 1998, he is working as an internal coach at SAP since 2002. With short interruptions he is globally responsible for the external coach pool across all management levels and is currently implementing a coachbot to complement the service portfolio. He is Co-founder of DBVC e.V. in 2004. In 2023 he co-founded in this context with, Dr. Uwe Böning. the so-called Think Tank “Future of Coaching” . He is author of various publications on the topic of (the future of) coaching. 
 
Stefan Stenzel Linkedin

Webpage Stefan Stenzel

Book: Die Zukunft des Coaching-Business

Contact Stefan Stenzel: kontakt@coaching-reset.de


► Disclaimer

The statements and expressed opinions of Stefan Stenzel are his own and do not represent the views, positions, or policies of SAP SE.

Any comments he made are purely personal and should not be interpreted as being endorsed with SAP SE.

For any official information or statements, please refer directly to SAP SE.

Why Knowing Your ‘Why’ Makes You a Better Leader

Dirk VerburgLeave a comment

All business leaders I know are able to explain What they do, almost all of them How they do it, but only a minority can explain Why they do what they do, and that is a missed opportunity, both for themselves and their teams.

Man’s Search for Meaning

Most people I know regularly reflect on the meaning and purpose of life. In 1946, Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and psychotherapist, wrote one of the most important and influential books on this topic: ‘Man’s Search for Meaning‘.

It is a short but poignant and profound book that contains Frankl’s reflections on this question during his time in Nazi concentration camps, where he and his family were imprisoned because they were Jewish. In these camps, Viktor Frankl lost his father, mother, and wife.

In ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’., he formulated the thesis that inmates in the camps, who had a sense of meaning in their lives, were more likely to survive.

Therefore, he recommends us to stop asking for “THE” meaning of life, and instead think about: What does life expect of me right now? In order to do this, we need to understand our unique and specific meaning.

“This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning.” — Viktor Frankl

According to Frankl, understanding our unique and specific meaning (a.k.a. our “Why”) is important for our happiness and our ability to cope with suffering. This is the same point Friedrich Nietzsche made when he stated that “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how”.

‘Start with Why’

In 2009, Simon Sinek published “Start with Why“, which introduced the importance of meaning and purpose in the world of business. This book underlined the importance for leaders to understand and express their “Why” in order to inspire others.

A great way to illustrate this is to look at the market for laptops.

Most people buy laptops based on the price-performance ratio. They look at which brand offers the best processor, memory, storage, display, and battery life for the lowest cost at a given moment. If Lenovo has the best deal, they will buy Lenovo; if HP, Acer, or Dell has the best deal, they will buy an HP, Acer, or Dell laptop.

Most Apple consumers completely bypass the brand selection process and confine their choice to the Apple ecosystem. The reason is that they believe in the brand or, to put it differently, the “Why” of Apple. Apple buyers connect to the brand because they identify with, for instance, the Crazy Ones. They are willing to pay a premium for a product that resonates with their identity.

Why is this relevant to me?

Understanding and being able to articulate our “Why” is incredibly important for two reasons.

First of all, it helps us stay true to ourselves when confronted with decisions. Instead of making decisions solely on their own merits and the specific circumstances at the moment in time where we need to make the decision, understanding our “Why” helps us make decisions that are congruent with our values.

Secondly, and here is why it is so important for leaders, it helps us connect with others faster and on a deeper level. Irrespective of whether we are formally in a leadership position or not, we need to give people a reason to follow us.

Why is all this relevant for my organization?

To boil down 100+ years of motivational theory in the crudest way possible: there are three ways to motivate our staff.

At the most basic level, we can ensure our staff delivers the required output (‘WHAT‘) through a combination of sticks and carrots. The issue is, of course, that control is required to ensure compliance, loyalty will be low — staff can easily be tempted by organisations that offer more carrots and fewer sticks — and discretionary effort is likely to be the exception rather than the rule.

At a more advanced level, we can make sure people enjoy the content of their work (‘HOW‘). Many consultants and investment bankers may be cynical about the contribution their companies make to society, but they almost always find the content of their work intellectually challenging. The difficulty is that there will almost always be organisations that can compete on content while also offering more in the sticks and carrots department.

Therefore, the most powerful way to motivate people is to appeal to a shared purpose (‘WHY‘). The reason people wanted to follow the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, or business leaders like Steve Jobs, Paul Polman, or nowadays Elon Musk, was not necessarily because they were nice or kind — because they often were not — but because they were able to formulate and communicate an irresistible Why.

Now, not all of us are Nelson Mandelas or Steve Jobses, and not all of us work for organisations that are changing the destinies of nations, dramatically improving human rights situations, or transforming entire industries. However, all of us have the potential to scale this principle to inspire others.

A good example is army regiments. Speaking with military personnel, I was struck by the fact that their loyalty lies not so much at the king-and-country level, but closer to home — with their colleagues and their regiment. That regiment may not have had a visible success in over 100 years, yet that is beside the point. They believe in the narrative — the values — of the regiment.

Just take a minute to imagine what you could achieve if your team consisted of self-motivated members who believed in a collective mission…

Do you know your Why — and does your team?

If you and your team do not know your Why or theirs, you are probably leaving your most powerful motivational lever untouched. I recently became a Certified Why Coach through Simon Sinek’s company, trained to help individuals and teams discover and articulate their purpose — and how to put it to work.

If you’re curious about what purpose-driven leadership could look like for you and your team, reach out to schedule a conversation.

Successfully Managing Executive Transitions – Interview Navid Nazemian

Dirk VerburgLeave a comment

Almost 90% of senior HR leaders agree that transitions into new roles are the most challenging periods in a leader’s professional life. However, organizational appetite to invest in these transitions remains minimal.

As business leaders, we seem to accept a 40% failure rate among newly appointed executives as an unavoidable risk.

The consequences of these failures are significant for both the individual and their organization.

For the individual, a failed transition damages their professional reputation and potentially their livelihood. For their organization, it results in direct financial costs (recruitment), opportunity costs, diminished employee engagement, and a degraded Employer Value Proposition (EVP).

In the 37th episode of the Leadership 2.0 podcast, I speak with Navid Nazemian—my brother-in-arms in the Executive Transition Coaching space—about how organizations can mitigate the risks of executive appointments by engaging an executive coach.

During our conversation, we discussed:

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The 70% Failure Rate: Why are most Business Transformations STILL getting ‘Lost’? – Interview Rupert Brown

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McKinsey’s infamous stat haunts every executive: 70% of all change management efforts fail. Despite decades of expertise, this number seems frozen in time. Why?

In the 35th episode of the Leadership 2.0 podcast, I sat down with a true transformation veteran, Rupert Brown, author of the eye-opening book, ‘Lost in Transformation’.

Rupert is an experienced Chief People Officer and change management specialist with deep expertise in M&A, digital transformation, and turnarounds, having advised giants like Procter & Gamble and Maersk.

This wasn’t just a discussion of tactics; it was a candid, emotionally intelligent discussion on how Transformations can be handled better.

Tune in to learn about:

  • Why Transformation projects continue to fail
  • The difference between Change and Transformation
  • The Bad Reputation of the word ‘Transformation’
  • Why we still struggle with Change Management  
  • In-Groups and Out-Groups in Change Management Processes  
  • Chief Acceleration Officers
  • Trust is Energy
  • Crises as Catalysts for Change
  • The impact of our Permacrisis on Change Management 
  • Behavioral Skills to cope with the BANI world’
  • Change Management and AI

If you’re leading a transformation—or struggling to survive one—you can’t afford to miss this. Rupert delivers the hard truths and the practical guidance needed to shift from ‘being Lost’ to becoming ‘the Leader of change’.

► You can watch or listen to a podcast with our conversation on:

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Have you ever considered taking a stimuli-rich holiday?

Dirk VerburgLeave a comment

For a number of people, the summer holidays represent the mental equivalent of an oasis in a desert: a perfect opportunity to temporarily escape their daily grind and the stress of their work.

Although holidays are a fairly new invention in the history of mankind, and actually only a privilege for a, largely Western Europe-based, minority of the workforce, we ascribe almost magical powers to them. The most important ‘super’ power is the one that suggests that if we take one or more weeks off and label this ‘a holiday’, we are fully relaxed and ready to face our challenges in the workplace again.

Switching off?

However, many people find it hard to mentally switch off from their work during their holidays. Usually, they spend the first days of the holidays decompressing from their work, and they switch back on a couple of days before their work starts again.

I firmly belonged to this category as well.

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Coaching in the workplace – An interview with Zena Everett

Dirk VerburgLeave a comment

Most of us are acutely aware of the gap between how organizations aspire to operate and the everyday reality of working within them.

This discrepancy often has a negative impact on the motivation and well-being of employees, ranging from a decrease in employee engagement, to mental health issues,

In her book ‘Badly Behaved People’, my fellow executive coach Zena Everett describes a number of real-world cases about how this discrepancy can manifest itself, and, perhaps more importantly, how we can address them

What I particularly like about about this book is how Zena makes complex psychological concepts (for instance, Transactional Analysis) accessible without oversimplifying them, and demonstrates how they can be applied in the workplace.

In our conversation about her book, Zena and I discussed the following topics:

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How to ensure successful leadership transitions – An interview with Michael Watkins

Dirk Verburg1 Comment

The statistics are sobering: not only do 49% of external executive hires end in failure within 18 months, but internal moves prove to be challenging as well. For instance, 40% of internal job moves involving high potentials also end in failure.

Besides the fact that these failures often have a traumatic impact on the individuals involved, the costs for the organisations are huge. Not only in terms of image and hiring costs but, more importantly, in terms of opportunity costs.

To find out why leadership transitions prove to be so hard, and what companies and individuals can do about it, I interviewed Michael Watkins for my Leadership 2.0 podcast.

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Jungian analytical psychology in the Workplace – An Interview with Murray Stein

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I am a big fan of the work of Carl Jung, and in my opinion the business world could really benefit from his insights. Therefore, I was pleased to have the opportunity to have a conversation with Murray Stein about applying Jungian Analytical Psychology in the workplace.

Murray Stein is a graduate of Yale University (B.A. and M.Div.), the University of Chicago (Ph.D.), and the C.G. Jung Institut-Zurich (Diploma). He is a founding member of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and of the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts. He has been the president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (2001-4), and President of The International School of Analytical Psychology (ISAP)in Zurich (2008-2012).

He published tens of books about Carl Jung and analytical psychology, including for instance ‘Jung’s Treatment of Christianity’ and ‘Jung’s Map of the Soul’.

The focus of our conversation was a book Murray edited with John Hollwitz called ‘The Psyche at work – Workplace Applications of Jungian Analytical Psychology’.

We discussed a number of topics, including:

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Resilience training is not enough to combat stress in the workplace

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For those who have never experienced it firsthand, or witnessed it from nearby, scientific research has shown that work can be a considerable source of stress. 

This stress can manifest itself in the form of emotions (e.g. anxiety and depression), cognitive performance (e.g. in decision-making), negative behaviors (e.g. unhealthy eating habits, alcohol and drug abuse, aggression), and physical symptoms (e.g. high blood pressure, neck-, head- and shoulder pain).

Not only does stress have a negative impact on individual employees, absenteeism and low engagement for instance can seriously impact the performance of their organizations as well.

Resilience training

The popularity of resilience training in the workplace has dramatically increased in the last couple of years (particularly as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic), and there is evidence that, if done in the right format, this training can help individuals in certain target groups to deal with stress.

Positioning

The problem is that resilience training is almost always only a part of the solution, and that is almost meaningless if offered in isolation to mitigate work-related stress. 

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Why you are a micro-manager and what you can do about it (Stop adding value)

Dirk VerburgLeave a comment

One of the big temptations we as leaders face is our urge to add value to the work of our staff. Typically, we add this value in the form of change or additional requests.

There are three reasons why adding value is tempting for us:

  • Accountability – We are accountable for the work of our staff. If something goes wrong, we as leaders suffer the consequences (‘It happened on your watch’)
  • Know-how – We know it better than our staff. Seriously. That is most often the reason why we were appointed
  • We like it – As leaders it is often tempting to take a break from the daily grind of budgets and office politics, to dive back into the content we love(d) so much (‘Let me show you how it is done’)

As with every temptation in life, we need to fight this one as well. There are fivereasons for this:

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Your wellbeing: why a personal mission is more important than a position

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What do the notorious former marketing director of American Apparel, Ryan Holiday, and renowned Dutch reformed theologian Bram van de Beek have in common? They both have written a book about the danger of egocentricity. 

Social media…are not to blame

Social media offers endless possibilities to promote ourselves and serve as outlets for our vanity. It enables us to humble brag about our professional achievements on LinkedIn, share evidence of our successful ‘friends & family’ life on Facebook, and demonstrate our cutting-edge lifestyle on Instagram. 

However, looking at our current society and world history, it seems we as human beings always have been prone to self-centeredness and self-promotion. Social media therefore merely enables us to express something that is already deeply rooted in us.

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Improve your decision-making skills: time to get back to the gym!

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Something I struggled with for a long time is chronic neck and shoulder pain when working with my computer. For the largest part of my life, I sat behind my computer like the hunchback of Notre Dame.

Well meant ergonomic advice, a standing desk, and using the mouse with my left hand only gave temporary relief.

The only thing that solves the problem structurally is going to the gym.

The problem is that I experienced being in the gym as exciting as watching grass grow. Besides, I always took the words of the apostle Paul “For bodily exercise profiteth little” (1 Tim 4:8) perhaps a little too close to heart. 

If getting back in shape is part of your past summer holiday intentions – here are three things that got me back in the gym earlier this year!

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For when I am weak, then I am strong – Authentic Self-Confidence

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‘We read to know we’re not alone’ said actor Anthony Hopkins, playing the character of author C.S. Lewis, in the movie ‘Shadowlands’. 

People suffering from the imposter syndrome doubt their abilities and feel like a fraud at work.I personally suffered quite a bit from the ‘imposter’ syndrome in the past, and at times experience serious relapses. 

Fortunately, it turns out I am not the only one!

After reading ‘Authentic Self-Confidence’ by Jacqueline Brassey, Nick van Dam and Arjen van Witteloostduijn, I realize I am part of a large community that includes successful (and sometimes well-known) academics, surgeons, management consultants and senior executives.

Lack of Authentic Self-Confidence can lead to sub-optimal performance (e.g. because individuals feel constrained to bring the best version of themselves at work), which can have negative emotional impact on themselves, their families, teams and organizations. Therefore a high-quality publication on this topic is extremely welcome.

There are three reasons why I full-heartedly recommend this book.

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The Negative Feedback Paradox

Dirk Verburg2 Comments

Let me start with a confession:I never liked receiving negative feedback, and have spent the largest part of my professional life ignoring it.

I found ignoring negative (or perhaps I should euphemistically say ‘corrective’) feedback to be quite easy. Depending on the situation, I either did not take the person who gave me feedback seriously (‘that is rich – from him?’), comforted myself that the feedback concerned only a minor issue in the grand scheme of my behavior (and that other aspects of my behavior would compensate this), or convinced myself that the person giving me feedback did not understand the context in which I acted the way I did or said the things I said.

It was not until I hit a serious roadblock in my career, that I started to see the fact that systematically ignoring feedback was not necessarily a great idea. 

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Decision making for a new Decade

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Every year millions of people around the world make New Year’s resolutions. Given that we are currently starting the 2020’s, we have the exciting opportunity to make resolutions for a whole new decade!

I decided to make mine around decision making. The reason for this was the fact that I had the opportunity to read ‘Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps – How to thrive in complexity’ by Jennifer Garvey Berger during the Christmas vacation.

One of the key notions in this book is that the world has become much more interconnected and therefore more complex. Unfortunately, our decision-making skills are ‘brilliantly designed – for an older, less connected, and more predictable version of the world’. In this context, Jennifer Garvey Berger mentions five mind traps we can find ourselves in, one of them being trapped in ‘Simple stories.

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Building an authentic personal brand starts with ‘why?

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Two weeks ago, I was asked to participate in an event about personal branding. The organizer asked me to focus specifically on the link between creating a personal brand and remaining authentic.

Because I have been irritated by the majority of the publications on this topic in the last 5+ years, I was excited to speak about it. Why? Because these articles often suggest people need a partial, or even full, make-over, in order to fit the mold of the specific environment they seek employment in. If that does not feel natural to them, the second piece of advice most publications give them is: ‘Fake it until you make it’.

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Put on your own oxygen mask first – and exponentially increase your personal effectiveness!

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Make your responsibilities your priority

For many business leaders, their day in the office resembles drinking from a fire hose. Not only do they need to attend a large number of meetings (often back to back), they are also hit with a continuous stream of ad-hoc questions from their staff, peers, customers, and line managers which require their attention and action.

A couple of years ago I started to get really worried about my personal effectiveness. Despite the outrageous number of hours I spent at work, I found it increasingly difficult to complete my tasks and finish my projects.

In order to address this, I decided to analyze my workload to find out what I could do to change this.

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Adopting a growth mindset requires critical self-reflection from leaders

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HC Gage Skidmore

Critical self-reflection is difficult to acquire, but extremely important for leaders

By Dirk Verburg

For several reasons I love reading autobiographies of leaders in business and politics. The first reason is plain curiosity: the possibility to take a look behind the stage of well-known events. The second reason is because these autobiographies provide a unique opportunity to understand decision making processes from the perspective of the decision makers. Why did they take certain decisions in specific situations? Were they aware of certain developments? From whom did they obtain advice? What was the role of important stakeholders? etc. Continue reading →