Do I Need a Coach?
Last year, I spent a lot of time on airplanes which can lead to a lot of introductory conversations. And when you introduce yourself as a communication coach, most seatmates have questions. The most common one is:
Do you think I need a coach?
A complex question which always gets a broad response from me: “It depends.” And from there, I learn a lot about someone’s career path and aspirations to date.
If I were sitting next to you, I’d say:
If this is the year that you want to get beyond roadblocks that have held back your career advancement and visibility…coaching is a great option.
Or if this is the year that you’ve been handed a great opportunity and it’s getting bigger and moving faster than you expected…coaching is a great option.
Communications coaching can help you push through almost any obstacle or excel at almost any opportunity.
But coaching doesn’t make sense if you’ve earmarked this as the year you want to coast or stand still. The value of coaching gets diluted when you don’t have any expectations or outcomes aligned to it.
If our practice is any indication, executive coaching is up by almost 30% in comparison to other leadership development programs. And the reason is the urgency to get results and the desire for hands-on support across leadership levels.
Our practice is built on two formats: group workshops and individual coaching. So, we’re not partial to one over the other. But where workshops rely on hypothetical situations and commonalities across a group of people to coach new skills, 1:1 coaching shifts from hypotheticals to real situations and from potential outcomes to desired results.
And I think that’s why we’ve seen such growth in executive coaching. The pace of work and expectations from work have increased significantly. And people who are in positions that carry the weight of those expectations want individual support at their fingertips.
But back to the introductory conversation. If we continue to talk about coaching, I’m likely to say:
The question isn’t really whether you need a coach because most people find value in coaching.
The most important question is how to choose a coach.
And that’s a conversation we have every day.
Chemistry Comes First: A one-on-one coaching engagement is a lot about chemistry between you and the coach. And most people set an introductory call to test this. But a lot of people don’t know how to interview a coach or consider what chemistry really means.
An initial reaction to someone is pretty easy. But more important than finding a coach you like is finding a coach who adds value.
Having been interviewed hundreds of times, many people approach the interview by diving into all their challenges or sharing all the feedback they’ve received and asking for a “diagnosis.” And it’s helpful to give a coach some perspective and focus for an engagement. But the coach doesn’t know you yet, so they won’t have all the answers.
Instead, consider one specific situation to share with the coach and see how they coach you around it. This will highlight how the coach gains insights, approaches situations and leads a discussion with you.
Learn about Approach & Process: If you bring an example as noted above, you’ll see the approach illustrated. And it easily leads to discussion of what to expect and how to manage the engagement. And that leads to process.
There are many coaches who have “fallen” into coaching as a next step to their own career experience. Expertise and experience are not the same thing, especially in the world of communication. If you want to mimic the way someone else has done something, you may prefer to have a mentor in your field or organization.
But if you want to strengthen and deepen your own skill set, then you want someone who has expertise in skill development.
Balance Process & Priorities: There’s a balance between following a process and prioritizing someone’s situations. And the best coaches do it well. But a less experienced coach may lean too much one way or the other. The “process” coach builds a plan and follows it to the letter. Each session is mapped out against goals. But there is little flexibility to shift from it. And that means your discussions will stay hypothetical or in parallel to your work, not immersed in it. And that loses a lot of value the coach can have working through situations that are in front of you.
A coach without process will let you run the show which means they react to what you bring them. This may keep your priorities front and center, but it also puts all the impetus of preparation on you. And that often adds more work versus more coaching.
In communication coaching, our formula for coaching is a balance of skills and situations. So, we drive a process that flexes to your needs and priorities. That ensures you leave us with an expanded toolkit and confidence in the application of those skills because we adopted and adapted them to your situations throughout the engagement.
As my seat mate, you don’t really want the details of our process yet. So, I don’t map it out. Instead, I wrap-up our discussion with one final point.
At some point in your career, you will leverage a coach. It may be for a peak in your career to support added responsibility. It may be for a valley in your career to work through roadblocks. Or it may be for all the steps between the peaks and valleys.
You have to decide when the timing is right for you. Communication coaching is different than coaching for tennis or golf. It isn’t about when you have the time for it. It’s about when you have the greatest need. And when you do, it’s time.
Want a free 15-minute consultation with us to see how we can help you or your leaders? Book a call now!
