The Business Challenge
Five years ago, a leading Indian conglomerate set out with an ambitious goal, to embed coaching at the heart of its leadership DNA.
The company, known for its structured approach to talent development and learning and growth, invested significantly in getting a large cohort of senior leaders certified as Coaches. The rationale was forward-thinking: build a team of Internal Coaches, grow internal capability, create more meaningful conversations across levels, and transform how leadership was practiced, not just taught.
An impressive infrastructure was built around this effort, platforms to log sessions, communication pathways for potential coachees, even sponsor sensitization initiatives. The architecture was well-constructed. On paper, it was everything a company should do to signal its commitment to coaching.
The Unique Components That Affected Them
But within a year of certification, the numbers told a different story.
Most certified leaders had not taken on even one coachee. Coaching assignments were few and far between. The portal stood still. The conversations that were supposed to ripple across the organization simply hadn’t begun.
When the L&D team began digging, the answers weren’t surprising, but they were disheartening.
“I’m just not confident enough.”
“The Coachee just doesn’t understand what Coaching is… and I don’t know how to make them see it.”
“It’s been months since I trained. I’ve forgotten a lot.”
“It sounds great, but honestly, who has the time?”
The insight wasn’t that coaching wasn’t valued. It was that the transition from certified coach to active coach had never truly happened.
This is where Edify Consultants was brought in, not to restart the initiative, but to gently resuscitate it.
A Different Kind of Intervention
Edify didn’t arrive with decks or diagnostics. What they brought was a very different lens: that coaching doesn’t fail because people forget what they’ve learned; it fails because they lose the confidence and the motivation to try.
The brief was clear: work with the certified leaders to help them feel empowered, confident, and committed to begin coaching again. The leadership team expected lukewarm interest at best. Perhaps a handful of coaches might show up. Even fewer might stick through a program.
But what unfolded was quite the opposite.
Designing CARE: A Human-Centered Journey
Edify designed a five-month journey called CARE, short for Comfort, Awareness, Reinforcement, and Enablement. But the magic wasn’t in the acronym. It was in the atmosphere it created.
The tone was intentionally non-corporate. The program didn’t begin with forms or dashboards. It began with a warm welcome email, followed by an invitation to join a WhatsApp group. So people joined the group on their own volition and weren’t pushed into it. The goal? Keep things informal, real-time, and connected. Coaches didn’t need another calendar item. They needed something that felt human.
The WhatsApp group became a space where people greeted each other casually, shared reflections, asked simple questions, and posted quick wins. It lowered the stakes and raised the engagement.
Coaches were each assigned a Buddy Coach, a peer whose role wasn’t to assess, but to encourage. These buddy connections often became the most valued aspect of the program. Through periodic calls, they shared their hesitation, their attempts, even their non-starters. And for the first time since certification, they didn’t feel alone.
Small Nudges, Big Impact
There were no grand sessions or long lectures. Instead, short, focused interventions kept the energy flowing:
- Buddy Coach calls where the coaches talked about real dilemmas; how to begin, what to do when a coachee goes silent, how to manage expectations
- Masterclasses led by seasoned coaches, not to teach, but to normalize the uncertainty coaches felt
- Gamified challenges, quizzes, assessments, points, and leaderboards, not to compete, but to celebrate micro-movements
- Stories shared by coaches who had “gotten unstuck,” creating an upward spiral of belief
Over time, something subtle but powerful began to happen. Coaches who had logged zero sessions were now exploring conversations with colleagues. The excuses – too busy, too rusty, began to be replaced by gentle curiosity: What if I tried this again? What if I’m better than I remember?
The CARE group became a support ecosystem. People who had almost given up began hosting practice conversations. Coaches began talking to other leaders about coaching. The ripple had finally begun.
The Outcomes: Not Just Metrics, But Movement
By the end of five months, the numbers had moved. Average Coaching engagements of <2 grew to 3+. The Coachee’s Feedback rating to their Coach’s increased from an average of 3.5 to 4.5+
A significant majority of previously inactive coaches had taken on real coaching engagements. Several went on to continue coaching even beyond the program. Some took on Coaching as a way of Leadership.
The internal L&D team, initially cautious in their expectations, were now reporting unsolicited testimonials and stories of impact.
But perhaps more importantly, coaching was no longer a project. It had started becoming a practice.
Many coaches reported that they now saw coaching as part of their leadership identity, not just a role. Some had begun integrating coaching approaches into team conversations, feedback sessions, and performance reviews.
The infrastructure the company had built was finally being used, not because of a mandate, but because belief had returned.
Reflections
What this case teaches us is that learning doesn’t fail because people forget, it fails because they don’t feel ready to apply.
Coaches don’t need more theory. They need a safe space to try again.
Edify’s CARE intervention didn’t bring in new knowledge. It brought in trust, rhythm, and reinforcement, the very things that coaching itself is built on.
And in doing so, it helped a large-scale initiative move from potential to practice.
