Dominique Mas
Hi, you're listening to the Coaching in Organizations podcast, real stories and strategies for building coaching cultures within organizations, with an unapologetic love of group coaching. I'm your host, Dominique Mas, and I'm the founder at Group Coaching HQ. Today my guest is Michelle Davis, Program Manager of Executive Coaching at Wipfli.
Dominique Mas
I met Michelle on a panel and immediately knew that she'd have a ton to share about the pilot group coaching program they had built. So in this episode we dive into a topic that's on every internal coaching leader's mind: how do we measure and prove the impact of coaching and group coaching? Michelle shares a simple ROI formula that leaders believe in, she talks about why tying coaching to performance measures can backfire, and how to pair data with testimonials so the story lands with sponsors. And you get to learn about her as a human, which is truly delightful.
Dominique Mas
Welcome. Michelle Davis is my guest today, she's the Program Manager for Executive Coaching at Wipfli. Hi Michelle.
Michelle Davis
Hi Dom, great to see you.
Dominique Mas
Great to see you. I'm really excited, I'm going to share a little bit about you and then you can tell me if I missed anything. But one of the main things that you shared with me is that transforming people and workplaces from functioning to flourishing is something that drives your work as an internal coaching leader.
Dominique Mas
You envision the workplace as a space where professionals can live out their values, cultivate meaning, and become their best selves. You lead and have been leading for a little while the internal coaching practice at Wipfli, a professional services and advisory firm where the mission is to empower associates to realize their highest potential and live the lives they imagine.
Dominique Mas
A fun fact that informs how you show up in your work today is that prior to becoming a certified coach you spent 15 years in business development at the University of Michigan. Did I miss anything?
Michelle Davis
No, that's a great summary, thank you.
Dominique Mas
Yeah, thank you so much, and I'm excited. So I'd love actually to add a little bit to that bio and for you to give us the short origin story. What pulled you into coaching and what is it that made you move from being an external coach to being an internal coach?
Michelle Davis
Yes, it's an adventure. I think every coach has an origin story of some sort that kind of led ourselves on this path. So you mentioned I worked at the University of Michigan, I was there for 15 years, had a really great career with climbing that ladder and finding success. But I think like a lot of people, I had a mid-career crisis or an awakening, you know, however you want to look at it. And I got to a point where I, quite frankly, was very overwhelmed looking above and ahead of me, knowing what kind of work lay ahead and feeling like, is this what I really want to do for the rest of my career? And then following that thought, like, what do I want to be when I grow up? And you know, in your late 30s, you're like, I should have figured this out by now. So I was grappling with those thoughts.
Michelle Davis
And so I hired a coach. I hired a coach to help me work through it. Through that experience, obviously it was transformational. I got to understand what coaching is and thought, hey, wow, maybe I could do that. This is like a dream career. I think like a lot of coaches say, in their previous careers, they were the people that, you know, people would come to for their challenges, what was exciting them. So I definitely was that person and I thought, well, maybe I could be good at this.
Michelle Davis
So I was still working full-time and I decided to go through coach training and thought, I don't know if this is going to go anywhere, but I know it'll make me a better leader. I know it'll probably make me a better parent, spouse, all of those things. So showed up that first day of training in Chicago and, you know, just looked around and I said, these are my people and this is what I have to be doing. So I, you know, I planted that seed in that first training session that, okay, I don't know how or when, but I'm going to do this full-time.
Michelle Davis
So fast forward, I was able to, over a period of about a year, to be able to transfer out of the University of Michigan and then to a full-time coach and got to work with different organizations as an external coach, which was awesome. So I did that for about six years and obviously enjoyed it. I think especially for people who have worked in complex, large organizations, very hierarchical, becoming a solopreneur was exhilarating. I mean, it was so exciting to be able to like, oh, I get to build a website and, you know, you get to be your own boss and all of those things.
Michelle Davis
I think for me, it started to wear off in about year five and I was starting to miss teamwork and working with teams toward a goal together. That affinity piece, I just, I was missing. Of course, I was, you know, collaborating with coaches, but it just wasn't the same. So I started to get that feeling of kind of like, this is kind of lonely, honestly. And then the impact piece around, I'm working with all of these people in different organizations, hoping I'm having an impact and hopefully that's rippling out. But honestly, how much impact can I have with one person in one organization, right? Or a couple of people in one organization.
Michelle Davis
So I really started to think, gosh, to be an internal coach, that could be cool, right? Like you're working with, you know, one organization, it's people, and knowing kind of the mission and the values and the challenges of one organization and really being able to dive in deep, that really became compelling to me. So yeah, and so I tell people who are interested in becoming internal coaches, there are not a lot of roles out there. I mean, obviously it's like a needle in the haystack. I just honestly feel like I got lucky in that I jumped on a LinkedIn job description posting and filled out an application and I got a call back. That's, you know, that's how it happened.
Dominique Mas
Well, you know, as coaches, we know that yes, luck plays a little part in things, but also you put in the work.
Michelle Davis
I think so. I think so. I hope so. But yeah, I got very lucky, especially with an organization where I am, where the culture is really positive and it's just, I said when I applied for it, this is my dream job. I still am saying that a year and a half later, so.
Dominique Mas
That's amazing to hear. And actually, we'll come to the culture at Wipfli in a second. I'm curious for you though, as you became an internal coach, what changed when you became accountable to business outcomes? Because as an external coach, you're working with that one person, but as you said, when you are an internal coach, you have a much wider picture to look at and a lot more to take into consideration. So what changed for you?
Michelle Davis
I would say, you know, it was definitely a shift, right? From being an external coach where you can, for the most part, really hold the client's agenda, right? And really focus on them. Obviously, you're getting information from, you know, their managers usually and kind of understand the business a little bit to then be internal and learning to hold both my client's agenda within the business's priorities, right?
Michelle Davis
So I think of it as sort of like the business priorities and goals are the frame and I get to work with my clients within that frame. So it's not, I don't find it to be confining in any way or hard to do. I think it's a dance, right? And I probably don't do it perfectly all the time, but I definitely, because I believe in the work that we do with this firm, it makes it easy to do, honestly, to be able to hold both of those things. But it definitely was a shift that I had to make.
Dominique Mas
Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that because our focus for today is going to be thinking about measuring impact. And I think unless we have business outcomes top of mind in everything we do in our coaching programs, it's going to be really hard to measure impact. So I really appreciate you actually calling this in. And I'm curious if you could tell us a little bit about the coaching culture at Wipfli. What does it look like?
Dominique Mas
Who gets coaching? What type of coaching? What sort of modalities do you use? I'd love to hear a little bit more about the bigger picture.
Michelle Davis
Yeah, so I would say we are in our toddler hood of coaching at Wipfli. It started as a pilot in 2022 with just 18 of our tax associates. And over time, it has grown into a three times a year program for our managers, senior managers, and directors across the firm and high potentials, right? We only work with high potential associates, which is great. We also have a partner program, so we do coaching with some of our partners.
Michelle Davis
So that was it when I came in. We were really just doing one-on-one coaching. But I saw an opportunity when I came in. Again, great positive culture, really wanted to be able to scale coaching to more people because when I came in, there was one coach, one internal coach. We've since been able to double in size. We've hired one other internal coach. So how do you scale that, right? There's only so many hours in the day, obviously.
Dominique Mas
And just to clarify that one coach was you.
Michelle Davis
One coach was me. That one coach was me, yes.
Michelle Davis
And so, but again, only with two coaches, we do have a bunch of some really great external coaches as well. But you know, it's small and I want more. I think the goal of any coach is for everyone to experience coaching in some way. And so I saw an opportunity for group coaching, obviously. I've had some training in group coaching and have done it as an external coach in some organizations. So I thought this could be a great place to be able to expand.
Michelle Davis
So we did a pilot recently that was successful and we have plans to do more of it and make it part of our, you know, like a real program that we do continuously. And then we also are doing some team coaching as well and we're definitely moving toward growing that as well.
Michelle Davis
The other piece that we have started doing is teaching coaching skills to managers. So we have what's called a boot camp for managers and a module in that is teaching coaching skills and practicing. I mean, part of it is obviously teaching, but a big portion of it is practicing.
Michelle Davis
So that has been really fun to be involved in creating that program and growing it and we just keep iterating it now. And it's in person, which is really cool because I get, yeah, we get to, you know, meet our associates in person. And I think it, especially in that practice piece, being in person really makes it real.
Dominique Mas
Yeah, it creates a different type of relationship and also for them, right? To have that connection, it's wonderful. I'm curious. Thank you for sharing the bigger picture of how coaching is working at Wipfli. And also how awesome, what a great coaching culture, you know, for what, four years of coaching? You said you started in 2022 and where you are now, it sounds really outstanding and it sounds like it's spreading and rippling through everybody, including managers learning coaching skills, which is wonderful. But as we're focusing and thinking really about measuring impact and measuring ROI, I'm curious, let's focus for a second on the pilot, on the group coaching pilot.
Dominique Mas
Can you tell us a little bit more about who it was for and what was the business needs? Because that's, I'm assuming, what's going to help you measure the impact of it. So could you share a little bit more about that?
Michelle Davis
Yeah, so for context, so I work in a professional services firm. So numbers and metrics are the language that we speak around here, right? So I knew that whatever we designed needed to be measured. And so I had that in mind. A couple of things were at play.
Michelle Davis
And another thing was we kept hearing from our coaches in one-on-one sessions about, you know, time management. How can I manage my time better? I have so much on my plate, overwhelm, all of those things. And I think every coach, you know, who works with professionals and organizations, this is such a common topic.
Michelle Davis
So that was happening in addition to just a lot of change happening within the firm. We have a real priority around growth now that didn't exist five years ago. And so I was thinking, I was putting all these things together and thinking, okay, what if we did a pilot around strategic time management for high potential senior managers and directors and, you know, measure it, right?
Michelle Davis
So we knew that we needed a robust pre and post coaching surveys to be able to see impact. So the three measurements we tracked were engagement before and following coaching. That is a major measurement of coaching for all of our programs.
Dominique Mas
Can I pause you for just one second before you move to the next two? Can you tell us a little bit more about what engagement, how you measured engagement? Like what did engagement mean in this context?
Michelle Davis
Yeah, so we have the same sort of three questions in all of our pre-coaching surveys around how engaged do you feel in your work? How do they feel about, you know, satisfaction around their role, compensation, all of those things? So that's how we kind of talk about engagement. So engagement, the other piece is how satisfied they were with their time management skills. I mean, this was obviously specific to this program. And then in our post-survey, we asked, you know, how much time per week they were able to save due to going through the group coaching program. So those were the three things that we wanted to measure.
Michelle Davis
And of course, we saw really great results. We had an average of two hours a week saved for participants who went through it. Engagement increased about 20%. And satisfaction with time management increased by two points on average. So, and it was a short pilot. We only had five sessions, 60 minutes long, you know, over three months. And so, you know, if it was successful there, I think if we, when we do it again for other populations, we'll make them longer. I would love to make them 90 minutes over six months. You know, just to, I think we can have even bigger impact.
Group Coaching HQ
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Dominique Mas
How many people did you have in each group? I think it's five. People always want to know. Five, that's great. That's so great. That's such a magic number. Five, six, like four people to really gel. And especially in 60 minutes, they give you just enough time for everyone to feel like they're being seen and able to share.
Michelle Davis
I'm curious because you're the expert on group coaching. Like what do you see around, yeah, what's optimal in groups for group coaching?
Dominique Mas
Yeah, we always talk about six people is really the ideal for people to feel that the group is still intimate enough that they can build trust with every other person in the group. And in terms of timing length, we always think about it like six up to 60 minutes is fine. And then if we have more than that, our groups are usually six to eight. And if we have more than six, then we'll go to 75 or 90 minutes just to, again, so that there's enough time for everyone to feel that they've been able to share their challenges and get a little bit of individual coaching as well.
Dominique Mas
I am so, I love that you did that so much. And I love that you started with the end in mind and really thinking about what you wanted to measure before you started. And I am guessing how you measured ROI so that you could tell a story to leadership that they would trust and that they would appreciate so that you could get buy-in for future programs. But I'd love for you to share how you did that. So you measured how much time was saved and then how did you translate that into ROI for your leaders?
Michelle Davis
Yeah, so it's funny, good timing because we just, so this pilot was, we had a sponsor for it and one of our partners in the firm. So she helped us source and enroll participants for it, which was great. And so yesterday we had a debrief with her to kind of walk her through all of the results, you know, the impact of the program. We shared with her testimonials, which I think are really important.
Michelle Davis
And the other thing that's not necessarily measurable, but we definitely shared it with her and she loved this was just the camaraderie that was created in the groups and the support. And, you know, we got so many comments around, I feel less alone. It's nice to know I'm, you know, other people are experiencing this. I was able to be supportive of people who I didn't know in the beginning, but got to know throughout the program. So I think it's sometimes it's those intangibles that, you know, definitely added to kind of the presentation that we made to her.
Michelle Davis
And she really appreciated both the qualitative and the quantitative data. And, you know, she was really excited afterward and said, okay, how can we do more? I want to do, I want my group to do more of this. So that's all you could ask for, right?
Dominique Mas
Yeah, that's so awesome. That's so awesome. And one thing you'd mentioned before in a previous conversation that you decided to remove performance as a metric from your coaching programs. Can you tell us a little more about that decision?
Michelle Davis
Yeah, so when I came in, that was a part of the measurements across all of the, you know, coaching programs that we were doing. And when I came in, I had mixed feelings about that, right? And so many variables go into performance. And when I talk about performance here, I mean overall performance through like a performance review process, right? So a lot of our data comes from pre and post coaching engagements because it's very focused on the coaching. But we were measuring performance, you know, big P, right? So our engagements are typically six to eight sessions long, right? It's a short amount of time.
Michelle Davis
And what we as coaches are aiming for is more long-term behavioral and developmental growth that sometimes you can't measure within a whole year, a short amount of time. So it just, it didn't sit right with me and I talked to other internal coaches who also said, no, we don't make that a part of the equation for those reasons. So I'm more interested in measuring behavioral changes from both the coachees and their managers following coaching engagements because I think it speaks more to the coaching experience. And hopefully, you know, coachees are taking those habits and behaviors forward over time. So that was my reasoning.
Dominique Mas
Yeah, thank you. And you just said something I want to follow up on if you don't mind. You said coaches and their managers. Do you include managers in measuring impact? So if so, how do you do that?
Michelle Davis
Yeah, so we do with our one-on-one coaching engagements. We have, like I think a lot of organizations do, we have an alignment meeting before the coaching kicks off. So it's the three of us talking about what the coachee would like to focus on. The manager then gives their feedback on, you know, what they see as opportunities for growth. And then we move into just the one-on-one. And it's obviously the coachee's agenda on what they want to work on.
Michelle Davis
But we make it clear in that alignment meeting that we expect the coachee and the manager to be talking to each other about the coachee's experience, what they're working on, and, you know, changes that they're making. And so we're hoping it's a conversation they're having throughout the process. We check in as coaches with the manager halfway through just to say, hey, just checking in. Obviously, we can't share anything because our conversations are confidential, but, you know, wondering if you're seeing any changes or if you have questions, reach out. So it's just a check-in and also to remind them to check in with their coachee about their goals.
Michelle Davis
So then afterward, we do send just a short survey to the PC to ask, did their coachee, you know, share their progress with their goal? And, you know, there's an MPS score as well for the managers. So yeah, we do like to include them. I think coachees appreciate it because especially if they're working on their goals and making progress, it's a way for them to, they can highlight that in their performance review, right? And so I think it's a way to highlight, you know, the work that they're doing with their manager.
Dominique Mas
Yeah, I love that so much. Thank you for sharing.
Dominique Mas
One of the things that we've done too is we've given managers a list of questions to help them check in with the coachee. So things like, hey, how are you, you know, what are you learning? Or, you know, how are you seeing yourself change?
Dominique Mas
So we've given them a list of like almost coaching questions that they can use at any time, like even if it's in passing, like a quick one. So maybe something to think about as well.
Michelle Davis
I know. I may have to get that list from you. I think that's such a great idea because they need help, right? In knowing what to reach out on, what's appropriate to reach out on, what kinds of questions. So I love that idea. I'm going to steal that.
Dominique Mas
No problem at all. All right, we are coming towards the end of this and I want to come back to you. We started with you and your journey into coaching and the shifts that you've made and the support, the way you've supported the culture to change at Wipfli. And I'm curious for you as a human, as a coach, what's been your biggest personal realization or shift through the adventure of building this coaching culture, building the pilot?
Michelle Davis
Yeah, that's a great question. I think one is affiliation. I've learned is really important to me. Making that shift from an external to internal coach, I just feel so much more engaged with the organization, with the people. So I've just learned I really like being a part of an organization. I like creating long-term relationships with people and teams. So that's one.
Michelle Davis
Another one is impact. I feel because we're building a coaching culture, we can embed ourselves in so many different programs that I really do feel like we are making an impact. And obviously part of that is measuring it, but also, you know, just the feedback and testimonials we get. It feels like we're not only making impact individually, but, you know, this ripple effect throughout the firm. And I think it's just growing as we do more and more culture building around coaching.
Michelle Davis
And I'm learning that I really like the mix. Like I get to coach part of the time, but I also get to do program management and design and talking with our leaders about what they need. So I'm learning that I really like that mix. It keeps it exciting. I like the variety of it.
Dominique Mas
Oh, I love it. I love it. Thank you for sharing that. And I'm going to switch, I have two questions for us to end on. But I'm going to switch them around because what you just shared about being an internal coach actually is a perfect segue into our previous guest's question.
Dominique Mas
So Catherine, that you know, Catherine Lord from ICF Coaching and Organizations, was our previous guest and she left a question for you, which is internal coaches sit in a dual role, both coach and employee. So when you learn things in coaching that could change how you see the organization or its people, how do you manage that boundary?
Michelle Davis
That's such a great question.
Group Coaching HQ
You know, Catherine, great question.
Michelle Davis
She's so good. Yes. I'm not surprised this question came from her. I would say generally speaking, I'm really able to compartmentalize well. And so while I'm getting glimpses of parts of the business based on especially my one-on-one coaching conversations, I know that I'm hearing, what I'm hearing are individual experiences from their lenses based on their lived experiences and backgrounds and mindsets, right? So I think I'm just able to kind of compartmentalize because at the end of the day, as coaches, we are coaching the person, right? Not the problem. And the problem typically is around the context of their role, their, you know, the firm, all of those things. And so I'm really, I think more focused on the person.
Michelle Davis
That being said, when I see a pattern over time around a particular topic coming from lots of different associates or partners, I do think it's our role to escalate it so it can be explored. You know, we have a unique perspective as coaches because we get to have these really deep conversations that can help make positive change within the firm, right? So it's always aggregated data. I would never talk about people individually because our conversations are confidential. But I do think if we're hearing something across the firm to escalate that and just let it be known that this is sort of the feeling or the vibe happening right now, I think that we have that opportunity to do that.
Dominique Mas
Thank you so much for that. And I'm going to ask you to end on what is your best advice to those who are looking to build the coaching culture at their organization?
Michelle Davis
I would say number one, getting your leaders on board, right? Being able to make the case that building a coaching culture is important. And here's where the ICF has a ton of resources. So they have white papers. There are things that you can download that, you know, is official and research, you know, there's research behind it. So I would say for sure, making the case, getting your leaders on board.
Michelle Davis
And if you do that, like start experimenting. That's what I did. You know, where are ways that I can embed coaching into existing programs or where is there a gap of support or knowledge that maybe coaching can help with? You know, we just started a group coaching within one of our new partner programs.
Michelle Davis
So we, again, just sort of experimenting. We scheduled four group coaching sessions. It's a year-long program. And we're about halfway through with those. But it's been great. Like we didn't have to do too much, right? Where it's already happening. Let's see if we can just slip this in, get some data, look at the impact.
Michelle Davis
So that's what I would say is, you know, get leaders on board, start experimenting, and see where you can just kind of embed coaching into existing programs.
Dominique Mas
Oh, thank you so much, Michelle. This was amazing. I am so grateful for you being a guest number two and helping us to get this podcast off the ground. And really, I am immensely grateful for your generosity, your willingness to share your experiences. I know that this is so valuable to those who are building coaching cultures, who are building pilots, programs to help them think about how they can measure impact. So I'm so grateful for you.
Dominique Mas
We're going to share your details in the show notes. So listeners, if you would like to connect with Michelle, her details will be included. You can email, you can LinkedIn, you can do all the things. But Michelle, thank you once again. So grateful for you for being here with us. And we will talk to you very soon.
Michelle Davis
Thanks so much. This was fun.
Dominique Mas
Thanks so much for joining us today. Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube at groupcoachinghq. And remember to subscribe to our mailing list for updates and upcoming events. You can find all of the information and links in the show notes. The Coaching and Organizations Podcast is brought to you by Group Coaching HQ and is produced and edited by Marc Pagan.
