"To be an executive coach, it is necessary to know that clients are the
first and best expert capable of solving their own problems and
achieving their own ambitions, that is precisely the main reason why
clients are motivated to call on a coach. When clients bring important
issues to a coach, they already made a complete inventory of their
personal or professional issues and of all possible options. Clients
have already tried working out their issues alone, and have not
succeeded."
When in doubt ask the Coach. I learned this lesson as a child playing organized sports in South Texas. It was a valuable lesson for me to learn because it taught me to incorporate a student mentality when I just didn't know or understand whatever it was I was up against. It is a scary feeling to not know while people are depending on you to make a play (or decision)... so you ask someone who knows.
Now, there is a grand canyon sized difference in making a bad decision at the little league field and not being sure about a business decision that could cost you valuable time and money... or both. However, the need for a good coach to rely on is exactly the same.
Before I joined the Navy I sold cars for a living. Now, I am fully aware of the bad rap car guys have in the industry (and some of them rightly earned). Tricksters, liars, swindlers. Ironically, this is exactly the reason I decided to enter that industry. I was stuck in traffic in downtown San Antonio one afternoon looking around at all the cars contributing to a five-lane parking lot and the thought entered my mind "Someone sold everyone of these cars to these people at some point and time... and a commission was paid in return." Why not me?
I never had to lie, cheat, or steal to sell a car. Instead I took an approach as a kind of coach to every new person I helped solve a problem. They needed a car, truck, or SUV and I had cars, trucks, and SUVs for sale. It was just a matter of asking a few discovery questions and leading them to what they want to buy.
Buying a car can be a highly stressful scenario. After all, there is usually tens of thousands (and sometimes hundreds of thousands when I sold Benzes in LA) at stake. A bad decision could land you in the wrong car for a long time. For me, I felt is was my responsibility to know as much as I could about the vehicles, financing options, and the entire sales process. Why? So I could help people make an informed decision and be happy parting ways with their hard earned money. In return I made a very nice living (until the economic crash of 2008... but that is a different story). After a few years selling cars I discovered the majority of my sells were from repeat and referral customers. They trusted me to take care of their needs and I treated them like family.
Being a good coach means providing those in need with tools they can use to find solutions they seek. It does not ever mean doing for others what they can't do for themselves. There is a student-teacher relationship between coach and coachee. Customers, or clients, or whomever is in need of help can help themselves out by seeking out someone who knows the answers. We all can understand that feeling of making the right decision based on knowledge we acquired from a really good coach. We earned something, and learned something that made us more informed, better prepared, and more capable than we were before we met Coach.
In relation to strategy and leadership coaching is a vital component. Both strategy and leadership can have certain unseen twists and turns that create barriers to the overall success of the mission, or goal. Having a good coach in an organization can make all the difference in the world to successful goal accomplishment and painful learning lessons. When we don't know... we ask Coach.
In my current organization, the Navy, we thrive on the coach/coachee cycle. Typically, we spend between 3 and 5 years at a particular duty station. This means we have 3 to 5 years to get as many qualifications as we can before we rotate to the next stop. Therefore, we Sailors are always somewhere in the coach/coachee cycle. Typically, but not always, we can't move on to the next qualification until we effectively train our replacement. This is how we have standardized our jobs. We can do the same qualifications in the Red Sea that we learned in San Diego. We have mastered this cycle and we have well trained coaches at every duty station in the reach of the US Navy.
So, to recap... whether you are learning to play organized sports, or run a mutli-billion dollar industry you need to have a good coach to rely on. There is always something to learn and always someone to learn it from. If you find yourself out of new things to learn then you have just graduated to the coveted position of Coach. Now pass it on!
When in doubt ask the Coach. I learned this lesson as a child playing organized sports in South Texas. It was a valuable lesson for me to learn because it taught me to incorporate a student mentality when I just didn't know or understand whatever it was I was up against. It is a scary feeling to not know while people are depending on you to make a play (or decision)... so you ask someone who knows.
Now, there is a grand canyon sized difference in making a bad decision at the little league field and not being sure about a business decision that could cost you valuable time and money... or both. However, the need for a good coach to rely on is exactly the same.
Before I joined the Navy I sold cars for a living. Now, I am fully aware of the bad rap car guys have in the industry (and some of them rightly earned). Tricksters, liars, swindlers. Ironically, this is exactly the reason I decided to enter that industry. I was stuck in traffic in downtown San Antonio one afternoon looking around at all the cars contributing to a five-lane parking lot and the thought entered my mind "Someone sold everyone of these cars to these people at some point and time... and a commission was paid in return." Why not me?
I never had to lie, cheat, or steal to sell a car. Instead I took an approach as a kind of coach to every new person I helped solve a problem. They needed a car, truck, or SUV and I had cars, trucks, and SUVs for sale. It was just a matter of asking a few discovery questions and leading them to what they want to buy.
Buying a car can be a highly stressful scenario. After all, there is usually tens of thousands (and sometimes hundreds of thousands when I sold Benzes in LA) at stake. A bad decision could land you in the wrong car for a long time. For me, I felt is was my responsibility to know as much as I could about the vehicles, financing options, and the entire sales process. Why? So I could help people make an informed decision and be happy parting ways with their hard earned money. In return I made a very nice living (until the economic crash of 2008... but that is a different story). After a few years selling cars I discovered the majority of my sells were from repeat and referral customers. They trusted me to take care of their needs and I treated them like family.
Being a good coach means providing those in need with tools they can use to find solutions they seek. It does not ever mean doing for others what they can't do for themselves. There is a student-teacher relationship between coach and coachee. Customers, or clients, or whomever is in need of help can help themselves out by seeking out someone who knows the answers. We all can understand that feeling of making the right decision based on knowledge we acquired from a really good coach. We earned something, and learned something that made us more informed, better prepared, and more capable than we were before we met Coach.
In relation to strategy and leadership coaching is a vital component. Both strategy and leadership can have certain unseen twists and turns that create barriers to the overall success of the mission, or goal. Having a good coach in an organization can make all the difference in the world to successful goal accomplishment and painful learning lessons. When we don't know... we ask Coach.
In my current organization, the Navy, we thrive on the coach/coachee cycle. Typically, we spend between 3 and 5 years at a particular duty station. This means we have 3 to 5 years to get as many qualifications as we can before we rotate to the next stop. Therefore, we Sailors are always somewhere in the coach/coachee cycle. Typically, but not always, we can't move on to the next qualification until we effectively train our replacement. This is how we have standardized our jobs. We can do the same qualifications in the Red Sea that we learned in San Diego. We have mastered this cycle and we have well trained coaches at every duty station in the reach of the US Navy.
So, to recap... whether you are learning to play organized sports, or run a mutli-billion dollar industry you need to have a good coach to rely on. There is always something to learn and always someone to learn it from. If you find yourself out of new things to learn then you have just graduated to the coveted position of Coach. Now pass it on!
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