Why Coaching Efforts Stall—and What Actually Moves Performance
Coaching Should Drive Measurable Performance
Coaching is one of the most common “go-to” strategies for improving performance. When performance stalls, leaders are told to coach more. When engagement dips, coaching is positioned as the answer. When development feels uneven, coaching is expected to close the gap.
Research supports the business case for coaching. Meta-analyses (Theeboom et al., 2013 and Cannon et al., 2023) have found workplace coaching is associated with positive outcomes across areas like performance, well-being, work attitudes, goal-directed self-regulation, and broader organizational outcomes.
If it’s everyone’s “go-to” and research supports it, why have many of our client partners experienced one of the following frustrations:
- Coaching is happening, yet the impact on performance is inconsistent.
- They can’t get their organization to adopt a coaching culture, limiting the impact on performance.
At Unboxed, we believe coaching can be one of the most powerful levers for performance improvement, but only when it’s implemented as a system rather than a set of conversations. A strong coaching culture is measurable, repeatable, and embedded into daily work. It builds the conditions for behavior change and creates a shared standard for how employees develop over time.
The Performance Problem Coaching is Meant to Solve
Coaching exists to change behavior in ways that show up in performance. Not in theory, in practice. Most organizations are not lacking coaching intent. They are struggling with coaching continuity.
Even when leaders have solid coaching skills, the system often breaks down because employees need support between the coaching moments, or “rhythms” as we call them at Unboxed. This includes:
- Reminders
- Reflection prompts
- Opportunities to practice
- Time-bound action items
- Clear accountability for follow-through
When that reinforcement is missing, coaching becomes episodic and disconnected from day-to-day execution, making it challenging to measure the impact on individual and organizational performance.
This shows up in broader performance management data too. Gallup has long emphasized the impact of unclear expectations and insufficient coaching on employee motivation and performance. They report that only a minority of employees strongly agree that their performance is managed in a way that motivates outstanding work (Wigert & Harter, 2017).
The takeaway is simple: coaching is not a one-time interaction. It’s rhythms of observation, feedback, action, and measurement over time.
Volume ≠ Effectiveness
The continuity issues discussed above lead directly to our next point: More coaching is not the answer.
When coaching does not deliver results, the default reaction is to increase volume: more check-ins, more conversation guides, more manager training, more tools. But coaching volume doesn’t equal coaching effectiveness. Many Unboxed partners in the life sciences space have integrated intensive coaching rhythms into their commercial teams over the last decade. Even within those organizations, it is still a challenge to convince field managers that coaching activity is not sufficient—coaching quality is what truly matters. Even if they believe it, it’s very difficult to execute quality coaching at scale when managers are short on time and busy juggling conflicting priorities.
Here are some of the top blockers that we navigate with our client partners:
Coaching fails when feedback doesn’t turn into action
A coaching rhythm that does not translate into changed behavior is just a conversation or touchpoint. It’s not performance improvement.
This is why reinforcement matters. At Unboxed we focus on building coaching systems and pull-through.
Regardless of organization or industry, the underlying point is broadly accepted in learning science: training introduces knowledge, but coaching, practice, and reinforcement are what drive sustained behavior change.
Coaching becomes inconsistent at scale
As organizations grow, teams spread out and leaders take on more responsibility; coaching tends to become uneven. Some employees receive high-quality coaching and frequent feedback. Others receive minimal support or only get coached when something goes wrong. A study by Lam et al. (2002) found that employees who received primarily negative coaching reported lower job satisfaction and organizational commitment lasting up to six months after the review.
Employees need support between rhythms
This is where the right systems and tools can help. Technology and AI do not replace coaching. They support consistency by making the “in-between” visible and actionable: nudges, reflection prompts, practice opportunities (e.g. AI Roleplay with Mentor), and tracking commitments over time.
A modern coaching system should reduce friction, increase follow-through, and make coaching easier to sustain for all involved, especially in distributed environments.
What a Measurable Coaching Culture Looks Like
A successful coaching culture is not defined by how often leaders talk about coaching. It's defined by whether coaching produces measurable improvement in the behaviors that drive results.
In strong coaching cultures, four things are true:
Expectations are clear and observable
Employees and coaches know what “good” looks like because behaviors and skills are defined in concrete terms. This makes coaching less subjective and more actionable. Think about tying coaching rhythms to a competency model, rubric, or Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS).
Coaching is structured around observation and feedback loops
Coaching is grounded in what leaders see and hear in real work, not general impressions. This is aligned with what coaching research tends to reward: coaching interventions are more likely to demonstrate positive outcomes when they are deliberate, structured, and tied to goal-directed progress, rather than informal advice (Theeboom et al., 2013 and Cannon et al., 2023). The best approach is to tie feedback directly to the expectations model to drive consistent performance.
Accountability exists through action
Each coaching rhythm ends with a clear commitment: what will change, when it will happen, and how success will be measured. Then that commitment needs a follow-up point, so the next coaching rhythm starts with evidence, not intention. This supports a mindset of continuous development.
Measurement focuses on growth over time
The most useful coaching measurement is not how many coaching conversations occurred. It’s what changed. This can include:
- Self-assessments aligned to skills
- Manager observations and feedback tied to defined behaviors
- Patterns in performance data
- Progress on targeted development commitments
- Correlation to KPIs (e.g. sales results)
Final Thought
We believe coaching is not separate from performance. It’s how performance improves.
But coaching must be operationalized to become a culture. That means it must be:
- Embedded into day-to-day workflows
- Reinforced through practice and application
- Supported by consistent feedback loops
- Measured over time through skill-based observation
Determined to elevate your organization's coaching culture? Let Unboxed show you how.
