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Issue 12 - July 2004
More electronic
newsletter articles:
Wilson's
Writings
Leadership
Lessons
Practice
Perspectives
Marketing Matters
Successful
Strategies
Leadership
Lessons:
The Value of Having A Coach
“I absolutely
believe that people, unless coached, never reach their maximum capabilities.”
Bob
Nardelli, CEO
Home Depot
At ConvergenceCoacing, LLC, we share this view, too, and that’s why we offer coaching services to our clients on both a firm and an individual basis through our Driving Your Success and Mapping Your Career Success programs. Several of the Convergence team members also employ individual performance coaches in one form or another outside of work.
Before we became coaching enthusiasts, though, we didn’t really see the value a coach could bring. This is probably because we thought we already knew, or at least should know, what we ought to be doing to develop ourselves or our business. And, we felt like we should just get to work “doing” those things instead of seeking coaching for help.
Sound familiar?
To better understand the benefits of having a coach, you need to first be able to answer the question, “What is a coach and what will they do when working with me?”
“[A coach is] part advisor, part sounding board, part cheerleader, part manager and part strategist.”
The Business Journal, April 2000
According to the Miriam-Webster Online Dictionary, a coach is a private tutor who instructs or trains a performer or a team of performers in fundamentals and helps direct a team’s strategy. In a business sense, a coach is someone who helps an individual professional realize their goals by honing their work strategies and tactics and enhancing their overall performance.
Usually, when you engage a coach to work with you, or a member of your team, they will help you to:
- Assess your ability in a particular area and identify your goals or ideals related to that particular area of your work or life;
- Develop a “game plan” to develop new skills, capabilities and habits and help generate new ideas that will enable you to meet your stated goals;
- Create a plan of action based on the ideas you’ve generated;
- Refine your plan;
- Implement your agreed upon action plan; and
- Develop an accountability mechanism that will enable you to keep your commitment.
After you better understand coaching precepts, it’s much easier to discern the value of having one.
A good coach will:
- Follow professional guidelines that govern confidentiality and non-disclosure and allow you to develop an environment of trust that you may not be able to have with someone inside your firm or family;
- Take the time to get to know you personally and professionally over time and will tailor their methods to suit your work style, needs and objectives without allowing your bad habits to sabotage your success;
- Utilize proven strategies and tools they’ve developed in coaching others to guide you through a standardized process. That way, you won’t have to reinvent the wheel or waste time on the way to your goals trying things that may not work; and
- Be committed to your chosen outcome, but unattached or removed from developing an outcome of their own. This detachment will enable your coach to guide you through the disappointment, frustration and confusion that can sometimes accompany your transformation and will help you gain the perspective that will enable you to experience “growing pains” without giving up on your true commitment.
- Above
all, a coach can help you focus on things that are important to you
and your firm but always seem to take a back seat to the urgent, everyday
realities of life. Your coach will help you set aside time each week
or month to work on your goals or on your practice so that you can see
genuine progress and results.
“Asked for a conservative estimate of the monetary payoff from the coaching they got, these managers described an average return of more than … six times what the coaching cost their companies.”
Fortune, February 2001
If you
are truly interested in achieving growth and generating real results,
take the time to learn more about our firm and individual coaching programs
by contacting Jennifer Wilson at (402) 933-2900 or jen@convergencecoaching.com.
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