Coaching for Results: The Kind of Change Results Coaches Facilitate and the Tactics they Use to Do So

Abstract

One major problem of aid effectiveness and public sector reforms in developing countries is the disparity between the planned outcomes and the actual performance on the ground – referred to as the implementation gap. To tackle this issue, since 2005, the World Bank develops and provides political and operational leadership support to borrowing countries to reinforce their capacity to achieve concrete results. Rapid results initiatives and tailored coaching create changes which help closing the implementation gap. However, little operational research is available on results coaching. The main argument of this research is that techniques, strategies and abilities deployed by results coaches have a significant influence on behavioral and organizational change, and ultimately on project implementation and development outcomes. Researchers surveyed fourteen coaches, and using an inductive approach, identified six types of changes and the techniques employed by the coaches. We present and discuss each of these changes and show that result coaching fills an important gap in our understanding of how leaders at different levels can improve implementation.