EZRA Coaching Unveils Findings from Most Comprehensive Behavioral Study of Coachable Skills Following Launch of EZRA Measure

By AIT News Desk On Jul 18, 2022

EZRA, the virtual professional coaching platform, announced the findings of one of the largest studies of its kind that assessed over 10,000 professionals to measure impact of professional coaching across 35 behaviors. This comes after the 2020 launch of EZRA Measure, a behavioral-science based assessment tool that for the first time in the professional coaching industry makes it possible to trace and quantify behavioral competency growth. The EZRA Measure framework was developed by Dr. Nigel Guenole, Director of Research for the Institute of Management at Goldsmiths, University of London, and aims to standardize and scientifically ground the measure of behavioral change, which historically has been gathered through self and peer assessments. Through a rigorous peer-reviewed process, researchers from EZRA’s Impact Lab developed a set of standardized assessments to accurately assess individual baselines and track behavioral growth across these competencies.

To build the EZRA Measure framework, EZRA Impact Labs reviewed existing competency frameworks and academic literature to identify the 35 key competencies that were observable, work-relevant, and coachable. After consulting with a panel of experts, EZRA’s team of behavioral scientists determined these competencies could be categorized as task-related or people-related, and developed a two-factor model that measures individual change against these behaviors. Through this framework, EZRA Measure can track the rate at which individuals are progressing against their personalized goals. Data from individual assessments can then be analyzed in aggregate to reveal trends across teams, organizations, or industries.

“Awareness of the power of coaching is growing as research evidence from the scientific and business communities alike demonstrates that coaching works. This knowledge is leading many organizations to offer widespread access to coaching to enhance performance and well-being,” said Dr. Guenole. “We focus on behavioral science research in coaching because it lets us drive measurable improvement in outcomes.”

During its testing stage, the EZRA Measure assessed over 10,000 leaders at the beginning and end of their coaching. The conclusion is that coaching can deliver powerful improvements in performance. This includes the impact of coaching on increases in capability, differences in priority competencies from industry to industry, and the overall impact of coaching on certain topic areas:

The three behaviors that are most improved by coaching are Prioritization (28%), Managing Conflict (22%), and Collaboration. (21%)
The three behaviors that showed the least improvement through coaching were Customer Focus (7%), Leading for Inclusion (8%), and Goal Setting. (9%)
Teams were 18% more productive when their managers had received coaching, versus control groups
Across all behaviors, three months of coaching drove a significant improvement of 9%. By increasing the coaching program length to 6 months, improvement increased to 16%.
Across industries, the skills organizations and individuals sought support for varied greatly. For example, Innovation is a popular skill in PR, marketing, and telecommunications, but typically a mid-range choice in other industries. Trust & Relationships is a highly popular choice in the fashion industry, but typically unchosen elsewhere.

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EZRA has also partnered with New York University’s School of Professional Studies’ Human Capital Management department. This includes sponsoring research fellow Melonie Collado, whose work centers on developing a categorization system that will allow EZRA to further examine how primary coaching styles impact behavioral development outcomes.

“At EZRA, our primary mission has always been to democratize coaching so employees don’t have to wait to get to the C-Suite before benefitting from this really transformative support. Part of making coaching more accessible means being able to demonstrate its impact. As an outcomes-obsessed organization, we knew early on we needed to revolutionize how we track and measure growth in a way that captures improvement at the individual, team, organization, and industry levels. We’re very excited to have taken a giant step in that direction.” said EZRA COO Jack Prevezer.

Last year, EZRA delivered over 100,000 coaching sessions globally and the organization is on track to increase its reach this year as demand for EZRA’s coaching services continues to grow.

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