Digital coaching platforms. You’ve likely seen the advertisements or perhaps a gigantic booth at one of our industry trade shows for these new players in the leadership coaching space. Maybe, like me, you checked out one of their websites after hearing that yet another famous person joined their board of directors. Scrolling through the website, you may have been intrigued by promises of streamlined processes and scalability. I know that quite a few of our clients have wondered about the capabilities of these new vendors who seem to be swarming our industry.

Can they truly live up to their time and budget-saving promises?

As Dion Leadership’s coaching business has grown, so have the number of client inquiries related to the online coaching platforms. How do Dion Leadership coaches measure up? Are our processes and procedures as scalable as theirs, so our important coaching services can be made available to more leaders? Curious to understand how our approach to coaching compares to these well-funded start-ups, I began researching them. This resulted in an article I wrote for Fast Company titled “Digital Coaching Platforms: Hope or Hype?” In this piece I explore the growing popularity of digital coaching platforms while questioning their effectiveness as compared to traditional, human-centered coaching. I argue that while these platforms can increase accessibility and scalability, they lack the personalized, nuanced touch that boutique coaching firms with their carefully vetted coaches provide.

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Central to my argument is what I call the high-touch, human-centered processes that are at the very core of successful coaching engagements. This begins with a rigorous process of facilitating a good match between coach and coachee. It’s about what we call the coach “fit.” I strongly believe that this kind of matching is not something that can be automated. It’s not a swipe left/swipe right process. It takes a conversation. It takes consideration.

This human-centered approach continues as the coaching engagement begins. Dion Leadership’s cadre of highly experienced and certified coaches consistently offer 100% personalized coaching engagements. Each coach follows best practices during the process and utilizes deep expertise to meet their coachee’s specific needs and learning style. The result is relevant, actionable coaching interactions that quickly and thoroughly get to the root of the coachee’s problem or situation.

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At the end of the day, coaching is all about results. It’s a structured process that involves guiding individuals to reach their personal or professional goals through self-awareness, strategic goal setting, and accountability. It involves personalized feedback, active listening, and thought-provoking questions to help leaders gain insights, develop skills, or change counter-productive behaviors. As I say in the Fast Company article, “I believe there’s a case to be made for using platforms to support experienced coaches… The looming problem I see is when coaching firms become hooked on the prospect of disruption and deriving value from coaching without investing in experienced coaches and human-centered coaching engagements.”

I encourage you to read the full article as well as our coaching blog posts. If you’d like to learn more about Dion Leadership’s coaching process, our executive leadership coaching page provides an excellent overview. I also encourage you to review the data we’ve collected over the past four years that illustrates the effectiveness of coaching; it’s published in our 2023 Coaching Research Study.  I’d be happy to arrange a time to talk with you about our approach as well as our cadre of excellent coaches.

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