Coaching and Haircuts

If you're reading this, you're probably someone who loves to learn. That's why you're probably pretty good at whatever you do, and why you want to get better at it. Reading is part of your educational program, and — obviously — I hope it remains so.

You probably also feel some frustration. You read. You learn ten ways to do this and seven steps to do that. And you make some progress. You've achieved some goals you've set, and some goals remain out there, even though you've been trying for ten months. Or ten years.

Reading can get you through some things, and not others. When you want to make a change, and reading hasn't helped, consider a personal coach.

Coaching styles and arrangements vary. In a typical program, you meet with your coach two to four times each month for from one-half to one hour, either in person or by phone. You can set up any arrangement that works for you. You're in charge.

If you're considering a coach, here are a few things to watch out for.

Recognize that you'll do most of the work

Being coached is different from getting a haircut. For a haircut, the haircutter does the work, not you. In coaching, depending on the style, the coach offers guidance, questions, wisdom, suggestions, support, encouragement, or even homework. But you do the work, not the coach.

Pay a reasonable fee

Being coached is different
from getting a haircut.
For a haircut, the haircutter
does the work, not you.
In coaching, you do
the work, not the coach.

Suppose you find someone to coach you for an unreasonably low fee. While this might work for some people, most will have difficulty doing the hard work needed. Most of us need the motivation of having made a serious financial commitment.

Know what you want to accomplish

You'll have a much better experience if you have a clear idea of where you want to go. Then you and your coach will decide to work on some achievable goals, and with guidance from your coach, you'll achieve them.

Choose a coach who doesn't know your organization

You'll get more insights (aha!s) when you explain your work situation to someone who's ignorant of your organization. You're forced to explain things from the very beginning, and that's often where the obstacles appear.

Choose a coach who isn't coaching anyone you know

A coach who has as a client someone in your life has a conflict of interest. Some coaches believe that these conflicts are manageable. I disagree. Steer clear.

In the end, "chemistry" helps determine the outcome of a coaching relationship. Sometimes you can tell when you first talk to someone that he or she is not your coach. Sometimes it takes a few sessions to know. Notice your feelings and trust them, just like you would after a haircut.  Top    Next Issue

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Related articles

More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:

Help for Asking for Help

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Recovering Time: II

Where do the days go? How can it be that we spend eight, ten, or twelve hours at work each day and get so little done? To find more time, focus on strategy.

Discussion Distractions: II

Meetings are less productive than they might be, if we could learn to recognize and prevent the most common distractions. Here is Part II of a small catalog of distractions frequently seen in meetings.

How to Make Good Guesses: Strategy

Making good guesses — guessing right — is often regarded as a talent that cannot be taught. Like most things, it probably does take talent to be among the first rank of those who make conjectures. But being in the second rank is pretty good, too, and we can learn how to do that.

Workplace Memes

Some patterns of workplace society reduce organizational effectiveness in ways that often escape our notice. Here are five examples.

See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming July 18: High Falutin' Goofy Talk: III

Workplace speech and writing sometimes strays into the land of pretentious but overused business phrases, which I like to call high falutin' goofy talk. We use these phrases with perhaps less thought than they deserve, because they can be trite or can evoke indecorous images. Here's Part III of a collection of phrases and images to avoid. Available here and by RSS on July 18.

And on July 25: Exploiting Functional Fixedness: II

A cognitive bias called functional fixedness causes difficulty in recognizing new uses for familiar things. It also makes for difficulty in recognizing devious uses of everyday behaviors. Here's Part II of a catalog of deviousness based on functional fixedness. Available here and by RSS on July 25.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenrXVPpjmnNTQrmbOXner@ChacNRvBLwHrOgtIkhcsoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

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