An Approach to Success: Enterprise-Wide Executive Coaching Programs

Ariel Roberts, Senior Manager, Global Talent Management and Brad Jayn, Sr. Manager, Global Talent Management at PepsiCo

As one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies, PepsiCo aims to be a humancentric learning organization revolving around the needs of its people and addressing those needs to help them build their skills and fulfill their career aspirations. From executive coaching and mentorship to learning platforms and leadership frameworks, the company fosters a culture of continuous learning and development

Let’s focus on executive coaching. Organizations prioritize executive coaching for several reasons; for global companies such as PepsiCo, executive coaching can have an immense impact. Executives often operate within multi-team systems in which they oversee other executives in addition to participating in executive leadership teams. Further, coaching provides HR with unique insight into the caliber of talent at the most senior levels. Finally, for the executive coaches, coaching provides benefits such as encouraging self-reflection of growth and opportunity areas related to development. This is an essential part of PepsiCo’s employee value proposition; we invest in our employees’ development throughout their careers at all stages and levels of leadership. Nonetheless, the positive outcomes associated with executive coaching are reliant upon other critical factors that require organizational support. Within the context of PepsiCo’s established process, we outline three lessons learned, which will be discussed in detail below: 1) leveraging the right tools, 2) maintaining a standardized approach, and 3) driving long-term engagement throughout the coaching process.

Leverge the Right Tools

As part of an executive coaching program, it’s important to rely on objective measures to gauge all parts of the employee’s traits and performance. These measures can include selfreport, observations, and simulated performance. PepsiCo uses a multi-trait, multi-method (MTMM) approach to assess coachees before, during, and after they receive coaching. For example, workstyle assessments are used to gather a baseline understanding of preferences and leadership potential, while 360 feedback assessments are used to gather observable performance. This allows for exploring growth during coaching sessions with more targeted and action-based discussions. Using an MMTM approach means choosing tools and assessments with strong scientific rigor and jobrelatedness. We suggest using the data in multiple ways, including guided discussion, benchmarking, and goal setting. For organizations starting their executive coaching journey, it is vital to start small, perhaps with only one assessment, while ensuring that any new assessments are valid, defensible, and aligned with the overall coaching & talent strategy

Maintain A Standardized Approach

In addition to leveraging the right tools, there must be a standardized approach to using those tools. This starts with an engaged workforce who understands the metrics for success and why they are measured against that. PepsiCo maintains a global leadership framework that is embedded in the company culture and values, as well as our metrics. By using this framework in executive coaching, employees are able to use a common language to gain self-awareness of their leadership capabilities. Further, coachees understand that all other leaders are benchmarked against this framework, leading to increased transparency and an understanding of how their individual results ladder up to the broader organization.

By using an organizational leadership framework as the north star of assessments, PepsiCo’s executive coachees are provided with tangible feedback, guides to effective developmental conversations with their coach, and normbased comparison information for the executive to see their results in context. This certifies a standardized approach in the sense that providing normative data and multiple assessment touchpoints allows the executive coachees to track their progress and understand from an organizationwide perspective what is critical to success. Maintaining a standardized framework and approach and instilling it within the organization can take time. Being purposeful about the overall talent strategy within the organization is a key first step to establishing a successful coaching program.

Drive Long term Engagement

The last lesson learned from a well-established developmental coaching program is that coaching takes time, but time is not always readily available. Working with top leadership within a global company, it is common that schedules change and priorities shift – creating challenges for the continuity of coaching relationships. Getting executives to invest multiple hours in their own development can be a balancing act. Thus, it’s imperative to maintain buy-in and engagement throughout the process. One critical part of this process is gaining buy-in from senior leadership and having a key stakeholder sponsor the program. Similarly, when a coachee is nominated for the program, the coachee’s manager should play a role in explaining the objectives of the coaching program and the potential performance or career unlocks for the coachee. We have found that involving managers at the outset is one of the strongest drivers of coachee engagement throughout the process. Another way to maintain engagement is to distribute assessments and feedback sessions throughout a coaching engagement. Doing so can create additional accountability opportunities across the coaching relationship and help manage a possible decline in coachee engagement

In summary, executive coaching is a multi-phased approach that warrants careful planning, active engagement, and scientific approaches to identifying strengths and opportunities. Organizations that want to develop executive coaching capabilities will benefit from creating a standardized approach that uses the right tools to assess and develop talent while driving long-term engagement across the enterprise