COACHING IS FOR WINNERS…GOT COACHING?

by Jeff Lesher, Certified Master Coach

Nearly every day, I speak with someone who shares a challenge they are facing.  Often, their challenge concerns something they want to accomplish as an individual or on behalf of their organization.  Being a curious person, I ask what they are doing to address the challenge.  If they haven’t yet figured out how they want to transform the challenge into an opportunity, I ask them if they have considered working with a coach.  Far too often, their answer includes some sentiment that coaches are for people with deficiencies or problems…or, in other words, coaches are for “losers.”   

When our exchange gets to this point, I can’t help myself but to kick into passionate coach mode.  My response to the belief that coaching is for losers is that just the opposite is true.  In fact, we know through research and application that coaching is for people who have the ambition and ability to perform at a high level, to think big, and take on challenges.  Coaching is for people who, coupled with their ambition and ability, have a certain humility that helps them continually pursue new and better ways to achieve their goals.  Based on my 20-plus years of helping my clients create value, I believe that “winners” are people who define their goals, map out a course to achieve them, and then pursue their goals relentlessly through success, failure, uncertainty, and change.  My conclusion: coaching – good coaching from the right coach for you – is for winners.

Conceptually, most of us understand that the current state of global competition, flat-world economics, and the challenge of outsourcing, requires that we adapt and enhance our skills to provide value to employers and clients.[1]  Faced with this reality, what is a traditionally well-educated, successful person to do, especially in a business environment that historically preaches, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”?  It would seem that we have two fundamental choices:

• Stay the Course – Keep doing more of the same and, as Satchel Paige famously said, "Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you."

• Blaze Your Own Trail – Consider the skills and interests that you can synthesize to create a unique, powerful brand within your profession or in a new career path.  For inspiration, you might recall the words of Robert F. Kennedy, “There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”

The Value of Coaching

For those who decide to take control of their futures through action, building a strong network and enlisting the support of mentors, peers, and family are key parts of an effective strategy to pursue your goals effectively.  The first step in that direction is identifying and defining your ultimate goal and how you intend to get there.  Knowing these things helps you package and present yourself powerfully and persuasively.  Most of us will be better able to understand and articulate our value proposition with the help of a professional coach.  Tiger Woods – the World’s greatest golfer – has multiple coaches.

Mr. Woods may be the most clearly superior person in his chosen profession.  His understanding that the continuous pursuit of excellence is an active process and that his competitors are in motion as well serves as a great example for the rest of us mere mortals.  Any of us – no matter how good we may be at what we do – can benefit from another’s perspective, expertise, challenge, and support.  Those factors and the value they enable us to create for ourselves, our organizations, and our clients are the measures of good coaching.

To achieve our desired change, we also are likely to look for training to help us do new things or to do the same things differently or better.  Training or other learning to acquire new skills is a good thing.  Research indicates that training can increase productivity by about 20 percent.  Importantly, research also indicates that training that is augmented by coaching (i.e., working with someone to help make sure we can and do implement what we’ve learned effectively) can increase productivity by nearly 90 percent.  Whatever one’s Return on Expectations (ROE) might be, the results will be better with good coaching.

Making an Investment in You

Albert Einstein’s notion that “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” is instructive for all of us who understand that the path to achievement and fulfillment is different than the one our parents traveled.  Our opportunity to make this journey a rewarding one is greatest when we leverage the resources available to us.  These resources include – perhaps especially – the resource of expert, professional coaching.  As someone who works every day to help organizations and their people pursue and achieve their goals, my encouragement to you is to make the conscious choice to be active in pursuit of your interests and ambitions.  I hope you choose to embrace the opportunity of further developing and applying the synthesis of all you know and how you use and share your knowledge – which essentially defines your unique brand.  When you make that choice, the next step is to find someone to collaborate with to help you create the strategy and tactics to pursue your higher aspirations; and, most importantly, to actually do the things you agree that you need to do to enable you to realize your goals in fact.  Find someone to draw out the best in you, to push you, to help you pick yourself up and dust yourself off, and then to go after your dreams again.  Find a good coach, the “right” coach.  

Finding the Right Coach for You

A good coach is someone who enables you to create value that otherwise is not/will not be contributed.  The right coach for you is someone with whom you:

• establish a connection that allows and encourages you to be open and candid in telling your story,

• are honest and realistic in planning your future, and

• are courageous and persistent in achieving your goals.

ABOVE ALL ELSE – your coach tailors his/her approach to you and your needs.  The resulting program is (like The Newlywed Game grand prize) “chosen especially for you!” 

The right coach for you isn’t necessarily someone who has a background in your industry or who has occupied a particular position or level in an organization. 

Coaching is an art unto itself and ought not be confused with consulting (doing something for you) or training (teaching you how to do something), though the value of consulting and/or training can be enhanced significantly with good coaching.  Coaching is about implementation of the tools and skills you acquire, executing your action plan – including adjustments along the way; and helping you get back on track when inevitable relapses into “old” behaviors occur. 

The right coach for you, therefore, is someone who can assist you in all of these ways.  Moreover, the right coach for you is someone in whom you have enough trust and confidence to occasionally be uncomfortable in your work together as you are pushed to think and act differently.  Good coaches and right coaches do not sell a one-size-fits-all approach.  Rather, they draw on a variety of skills and experiences in effective coaching to help create a path to move from where you are to where you want to be.  Most of all, your coach works to make sure you get there.

Action Plan

While it’s fresh in your mind, take action to find the right coach for you.  To find a coach:

• I recommend networking with people you know who have worked with a coach and recommend them.  Make sure to ask questions through which you can determine if the things they found agreeable are consistent with your needs and preferences

• You also can tap into one of the coach-credentialing organizations.  I earned my master coach credentials through the Behavioral Coaching Institute (BCI), but I also know of excellent coaches who are credentialed through the International Coach Federation (ICF).  Their websites offer coach search capabilities:

http://www.behavioral-coaching-institute.com/ (see Clients and Graduates)

http://www.coachfederation.org/ICF/ (see “Find a Credentialed Coach”)

Once you find your coach, get started as soon as possible.

Let me know how I can assist you in your coach search or in your efforts to apply your coaching.

Jeff

jlesher@aksciences.com

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