This article is part of the Business Insights Series, where we talk to professionals who are trying to solve big problems,cutting through the buzzwords to focus on what actually moves the needle. In this edition, we look at a question that’s quietly eating at the coaching and leadership industry: is any of it actually measurable?
Our guest, Jonny de Mallet Morgan, is the co-founder of FROM:TODAY, a leadership and communication consultancy working with tier-one banks and FTSE 100 companies (that’s the 100 largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange). But behind the polished client list and executive workshops lies a deeper mission: to build coaching and communication tools that feel meaningful to people,and demonstrate their value in measurable ways.
This mission is taking shape in the form of a new AI-driven venture Jonny is building,one that promises to connect leadership development to financial performance. It’s still in early stages, but it’s already asking better questions than most CRM dashboards.
Let’s look at what’s broken in the world of coaching, why AI might be able to help, and what leaders should be thinking about before they hire their next coach,or launch their next internal programme.
The ROI Problem in Coaching
Talk to any executive coach and they’ll tell you the same thing: it works. Talk to their CFO and you might get a different answer.
“I just haven’t ever found it [email marketing] being very successful.”
Jonny made this comment in the context of marketing challenges, but it echoes a broader issue common to coaching as well. The sentiment is familiar: lots of effort, not enough signal. Coaching, like email marketing, can feel meaningful,but when budgets tighten, stories aren’t enough.
Research consistently shows this measurement gap creates real business problems. According to recent studies tracking coaching effectiveness across multiple organisations, whilst 86% of companies rate leadership development as urgent, only 13% believe they execute it well. This disconnect isn’t from lack of investment,it’s from lack of measurable outcomes that connect to business performance.
In coaching, outcomes are notoriously difficult to measure. A good session might spark clarity, but how do you tie that to improved profit and loss three months later? Many leadership development programmes rely on participant surveys or generic satisfaction metrics. It’s like asking someone if they enjoyed a fire drill,useful, but not always connected to performance.
Leadership development still operates largely on trust and feel. The value is often defined by anecdotes, not data. Organisations invest in consultants to help leaders communicate better, resolve tension, and inspire performance,but measuring whether it actually works? That part is murky.
This creates tension for decision-makers. They believe in the value of coaching, but when procurement or finance asks for the impact statement, they’re stuck. FROM:TODAY wants to change that.
The goal is to keep the human part central while building systems that connect it to evidence in ways that make its value clearer. That includes dashboards, but more importantly, it means designing interventions that can be traced to business outcomes without reducing them to checkboxes.
This shift requires more than software,it asks coaching providers to rethink how success is defined. And it gives clients a chance to stop choosing between care and accountability. Done right, both can live in the same system.
“The idea is that we can start to correlate coaching interventions with performance outcomes.”
This quote points to a larger shift in mindset,toward accountability that doesn’t abandon empathy. In a field often driven by belief and instinct, the ability to connect human development to business impact could reshape how leaders make decisions. Data, when used carefully, won’t erase trust,it can reinforce it.
Data Alone Doesn’t Build Trust
It would be easy to imagine this kind of AI-driven coaching tool Jonny is developing through FROM:TODAY tech drifting into surveillance culture,an algorithm tracking every keystroke, measuring productivity by presence rather than purpose. But that’s not what Jonny’s building. His 15 years background as a stage actor before moving into leadership coaching,brings with it a unique attentiveness to human emotion, subtle communication, and the unsaid dynamics in a room.
“I care about the person who’s not doing well in the team. That’s what I’m obsessed with.”
This obsession with supporting the overlooked or struggling team member is at the heart of his approach. Jonny’s coaching model is centred on emotional nuance and psychological safety,values that don’t easily translate into software.
Research on psychological safety demonstrates why this focus matters for measurable business outcomes. Teams with high psychological safety are five times more likely to be effective. When organisations use dedicated measurement tools to track psychological safety,rather than relying on general satisfaction surveys, they report up to 40% reductions in turnover rates and 30% increases in innovation.
And yet, that’s precisely the challenge he’s tackling. FROM:TODAY’s AI tool is being designed with these human values in mind. The tool is being built to make invisible contributions visible, especially in cultures where introverted or neurodivergent employees may not be rewarded in traditional performance models. Instead of focusing on micromanagement or scoring behaviours, it aims to reflect how support and inclusion play out across a team’s performance landscape.
When leadership conversations include phrases like “thriving” and “belonging,” they’re often seen as soft or unmeasurable. Jonny’s approach aims to bring structure to leadership conversations in a way that preserves human complexity without flattening it. The hope is that both HR professionals and finance leaders can use the same data set to understand not just what people are doing, but how well the system supports them to do their best work.
Building the MVP: Lessons in Compliance and Care
As with any tech tool, the challenge lies not only in writing the code but also in understanding the environment it operates in,especially when dealing with sensitive data, workplace culture, and leadership dynamics. Jonny’s team has had to learn compliance quickly, especially around data security and ethical use.
“Compliance and data protection are at the top of our agenda,we’re building this with a serious focus on doing things properly from the start.”
The product is currently in its MVP (minimum viable product) phase, with beta testing planned. Funding is being raised through a network of angel investors and high-net-worth individuals. But what ultimately drives the development forward is clarity,having a shared understanding of purpose, ethics, and measurable value.
FROM:TODAY is trying to do something rare: build a tech product that strengthens human-centred coaching, rather than replace it. And that means staying close to the mission.
“The philosophical algorithm is what drives it… the human values come first.”
This speaks to a development mindset that’s unusual in tech,one that treats ethics as architecture instead of decoration. As FROM:TODAY moves forward, the success of this product will depend on its ability to function well while staying grounded in human-centred design. Balancing meaningful measurement with emotional intelligence will be key to its long-term relevance. That’s the real design challenge,and it sets the stage for broader questions that business leaders are already grappling with.
What This Means for Business Leaders
So what should you be thinking about if you’re a business owner or decision-maker?
Don’t settle for coaching that only feels good. Ask what’s actually changing.
It’s easy to walk out of a coaching session feeling energised, but that feeling alone doesn’t mean it worked. Businesses need to get more comfortable with asking tough questions: What specific skills improved? What behaviours shifted? What ripple effects can we observe across the team?
Good coaching should translate into better communication, stronger collaboration, and measurable results, not just a temporary mood boost.
When leaders rely solely on subjective feedback, they miss the opportunity to tie leadership growth to real business outcomes.
Trust can be supported by data when that data is clear, consistent, and aligned with real outcomes.
But trust doesn’t grow automatically just because a dashboard exists. It comes when teams feel that the data reflects reality, what they know to be true about their work and contributions. When metrics are fuzzy or seem disconnected from what people are actually doing, they can undermine confidence and introduce unnecessary friction. And in leadership development, that friction can undermine both adoption and impact.
Data is only helpful when it brings clarity to what matters,what people are doing, how they’re supported, and what outcomes are improving as a result. If the information adds layers of confusion or disconnects from day-to-day experience, its usefulness fades quickly.
If your development programmes aren’t aligned to performance, you’re funding a PowerPoint.
Leadership slides look great in a strategy deck. But unless the content is backed by behavioural change, those glossy frameworks become expensive decoration. Programmes need to connect clearly to performance indicators, retention, engagement, productivity, or decision quality. Otherwise, the investment becomes hard to justify.
Business leaders should ask: if we took this programme away, what would stop working? If the answer is “nothing,” it’s time to rethink the approach.
The future of leadership support may depend on how clearly we can connect care to outcomes. Programmes that demonstrate both empathy and effectiveness are becoming more relevant. FROM:TODAY is working to model what that kind of integrated solution can look like.
If you’re reading this and wondering how to apply these ideas to your own organisation, how to embed measurable leadership practices into your operations, build systems that support both performance and wellbeing, or make your internal initiatives more accountable,this is where we come in. At Serenichron, we help businesses implement digital strategies that connect human insight with real-world outcomes, without adding complexity for non-technical teams.
About the Author
Vlad writes about automation, operations, and the little tweaks that make a big difference in how businesses run. A former game designer turned founder, he now helps teams fix broken workflows and spot the revenue leaks hiding in plain sight.
About Serenichron
Helping businesses grow by simplifying strategy, streamlining systems, and making tech actually work for people. We bring clarity to chaos with practical tools, honest guidance, and just enough curiosity to question the default way of doing things.