5 Things I learned from Hiring a Coach

Leaders,

Let’s talk Coaching.

Coaching can be an exceptional value tool to businesses and the benefits to employees are endless. Developing critical thinking, confidence, introspection, clarity, and communicating more effectively are just a shortlist of the benefits of coaching your people.

I personally hired a Leadership Coach 6 months ago because I wanted to stretch myself, get uncomfortable and be accountable to someone. So today I wanted to share my experiences and what I learned from working with a coach, what things you could expect and where the true value is.

First off, what’s the difference between Mentoring, Advising, and Coaching.

Mentoring - is where two individuals pair up with the goal of the Mentor helping the Mentee develop their professional skills. The Mentor typically provides value to the Mentee by sharing their knowledge, wisdom, experience, and advice. The Mentor may also look for opportunities or open doors for the Mentee to give them a chance to progress their career.

Advising - similar to Mentors, Advisors have experience and expertise in the field you’re working in. Advisors will provide specific answers or advice based on the challenges you’re facing. Quite a lot of Managers advise, me too at times because it feels like I am being helpful. I am not.

Coaching - Unlike Mentors and Advisors, Coaches don’t necessarily need to come from your background or have similar role experience. The role of a Coach is to facilitate clarity, focus, learning, and accountability. A Coach will help you go within and find answers which you cannot find by yourself. They’re open up your perspective and elevate your thinking by pushing you to think differently and assess how you’ll approach specific situations. What are the blockers stopping you from taking action? Most importantly, once you have decided on your next steps, they’ll hold you accountable for turning up.

Now you know the differences, here are the top 5 benefits I experienced from working with a Coach.

1) Accountability - there were important projects or ideas I had and I was just putting them off. Mainly because there was an element of complexity, discomfort, or that it wasn’t urgent. We brainstormed important work and identified those tasks and set clear deadlines. So when I turned up to our next coaching session I had them ticked off.

Examples:

• Build out a succession plan

• Speak to a senior exec and align their vision with my work

• Present something which is providing value to my team to a group of other Leaders

• Leader development plan

2) Completion rate - I got so much more done. When you are partnering with a Coach and they’re holding you accountable to work, you get more done. Parkinson’s Law is working its magic. Also, sometimes I didn’t get everything done, we would talk through that and identify the blockers which were preventing me, I also learned more about myself from these misses.

3) Mental Resilience - when you’re focused on getting the uncomfortable work done repeatedly and in a short period of time you get used to working through discomfort as you know you need to have the task completed by a set time. With the quick succession of small wins, you’ll build more self-belief in yourself too.

4) Experience - when discovering a Coach I would recommend you find someone that not only is certified but also has a track record in your field. They’ll add so much more value and wisdom if they have been through similar challenges in their own career. This is exactly what I found, I not only identified a Leadership Coach but someone that had also lead in the technology sector which benefited me even more.

5) Clarity - a Coach will help you establish clarity, really important for your own personal vision and journey. Why do you do what you do? What’s important and what’s not? So rather than focusing on trying to be good or complete 15 goals this year, Split Focus, a Coach helps you align your values and purpose with what’s important. What are the critical goals which will help you the most? So you end up making significant progress and taking 15 steps towards one goal, rather than 1 step in each of your 15 goals.

Hope this helps

David

P.S. If you are interested in working with a Leadership and Executive Coach, please respond to this email and I’ll forward you the details of the one I used.

Resources Of The Week

• YouTube - Simon Sinek - Empathy. Simon talks about how empathy plays a big role in how we lead and why it starts from the top down. He compares the differences in employee experience between two hotels and how the environment drives the right behaviours.

• YouTube - How to ask great questions - this 8 mins video will give you the best summary of how to improve as a coach. 5 solid disciplines.

• Book - David Goggins - Can’t Hurt Me - this guy is an absolute machine. Ex Navy Seal and has completed the hardest ultra marathons on the planet. If you want inspiration from someone who has built incredible resiliency and unstoppable confidence, this book is for you.

Quote of the Week

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