Coach to the Contrary

I saw it hap­pen to me.

As a founder and co-founder of four com­pa­nies, I got in the way of my first two. I impeded their devel­op­ment to the extent that I was the per­son most respon­si­ble for not allow­ing these com­pa­nies to get to the next level. If it were not for either a board mem­ber or a men­tor, I would not have gone on to have the suc­cess that I did with them.

Exec­u­tive coach Mar­shall Gold­smith best summed up this per­va­sive human phe­nom­e­non in the title of his book, “What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There.”

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I often reflect on the “built in” assump­tion that, as a Coach, I must have all the right answers. After all, I WAS hired to pro­vide the answers, was I not?

Hardly. A Coach under­stands the value of ask­ing ques­tions. Great questions.

You can­not ask great ques­tions of some­one unless you first believe that they have (to some degree) the com­bi­na­tion of knowl­edge, wis­dom, and expe­ri­ence that will enable them to engage in the rig­or­ous process of ques­tion and answer.

As a Coach, I bring this respect and belief to each client. In doing so, it not only makes for a deeper, more effec­tive rela­tion­ship, but I get the con­tin­u­ous side ben­e­fit of learn­ing a ton from my clients.

Exam­ple.

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Are you grow­ing or are you devel­op­ing?

This may be one of the most pow­er­ful ques­tions you can ask. If you believe that growth and devel­op­ment are syn­ony­mous, well, you are mis­taken. The under­stand­ing and appli­ca­tion of the dif­fer­ence can be a break­through for your com­pany and for you as a person.

Accord­ing to the late Dr. Rus­sell Ack­off (Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus of Man­age­ment Sci­ence, Whar­ton Busi­ness School), growth is sim­ply an increase in num­ber or size, whereas devel­op­ment is an increase in com­pe­tence. Growth is quan­ti­ta­tive. Devel­op­ment is qualitative.

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Please answer this question:

Your company’s sus­tain­able, com­pet­i­tive advan­tage when respond­ing to mar­ket­place changes is based on which of the following?

a. Busi­ness Vision
b. Busi­ness Plan
c. Finan­cial resources
d. Cus­tomer rela­tion­ships
e. Prod­uct dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion
f. Tech­nol­ogy efficiencies/effectiveness
g. None of the above

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I have the priv­i­lege of facil­i­tat­ing a break­out ses­sion at this year’s Build­ing Cham­pi­ons Expe­ri­ence enti­tled “Simplicity.”

I love this topic, as I spent my early years (from the womb until about age eight) liv­ing quite sim­ply. Then my life became very chaotic, which only increased when I was 13. My father left home one day, and I had to go to work full time (I lied and said I was 16). For the next 35 or so years, life has been, well….complex.

In my 40’s, how­ever, I gained a sig­nif­i­cant appre­ci­a­tion for “pro­found sim­plic­ity,” as described by Will Schutz (a social psy­chol­o­gist). The more I live and the more I coach, the more I real­ize my role in help­ing oth­ers to nav­i­gate through the chaos and com­plex­ity, and emerge with “pro­found simplicity.”

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When I first engage with a leader and their senior team, one of the ini­tial ques­tions I ask about their com­pany is, “Given that the future is uncer­tain, how do you approach the future?”

I have each per­son type out their response, lim­it­ing it to no more than 200 words. I then make a copy of each response (with names omit­ted) and dis­trib­ute them to the team. I then ask each per­son to do two things:

1. Assign the “owner” of each statement.

2. Select the best indi­vid­ual response to approach­ing the future, and briefly state why they chose the one they did. They are free to choose their own.

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