A Coach is not…and is
June 4, 2008
If you look at the sports model, you’ll always find the coach on the sidelines. S/he is not the star, not the performer. S/he may be providing much of the strategy, or little, much of the encouragement, or merely a tweak, much of the sweat but little of the bruising. The coach is, or at least should be the cold reality of honest perspective wrapped in a warm blanket of trust and detached enough so as not to melt before the medicine is taken.
No, when coaching works, it is the performer who takes the laurels (and the lumps that can come along with learning), who seizes the opportunity that only proximity can reveal, whose rough edges get shorn. Coaches and mentors also help keep us in touch with our true self, so that we can be better people out in the world of business, and even at home. The coach is the supporting player, as it should be.
And we’ve always had coaches, mentors, cheerleaders. They’ve been known by a hundred names. Only recently that a body of knowledge, and a profession have sprung forth in a formal sense. But why now?
I think, frankly, that the current impetus is money related. “If you are going to charge for this service, I need to know how to calculate its value.” And that’s a fair request. The training and work/life experience a coach brings to the sidelines is an equal part of the winning, or losing proposition.
Coaching is not therapy. Coaching is not consulting. Coaching is not training. Coaching is not, as I once thought “wringing a person like a sponge to get out that extra content.” Coaching is not certain; both the coach and the person coached can mess up the process. It is not going to change your life, although it may be the 2×4 that strikes you causing instant revelation and cries of Eureka, or the brisk Fall breeze that clears away the cobwebs and helps you begin to get results!
Coaching is a tool where two people who respect each other explore how the potential in one of them can be maximized and how destructive and limiting behaviors can be overcome. It requires hope and trust. It requires that the coach be content with a position on the sidelines and a commitment to the success of the person being coached. It requires enough give and take where both the coach and the coached can tell the other, “you are dead wrong.”
If you want a coach, there are many good ones available. Ask around. Search the internet. Read articles by coaches. Find a coach who fits your needs, your time availability, your pocketbook. Take a test drive. Document your desired outcomes and each small success along the way. Never depend on memory – people (with the best of intentions) forget. Better yet, record each coaching session – a good coach won’t object.
And if your coach really helps you, the operative word is, “thanks.”
John Reddish works with entrepreneurs and other leaders who want to master growth, transition and succession to get results faster, less painfully and in ways that work for them. For more than 30 years, clients have called on John for Business Consulting – Help in Solving Problems and Seizing Opportunities; Speaking and Training that Informs and Motivates; and Executive Coaching and Mentoring. For information and/or additional similar content go to: www(dot)getresults(dot)com, or call 1.800.726.7985.
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