The Sense Makers

As I network to position myself as an executive coach, the feedback has been along the lines of “what exactly is coaching” and “that’s not what I want.  I want you to engage me, challenge me, be a consultant to me BUT DON’T tell me what to do”.

And so, I began the soul-searching to work out what I really am and how I can constructively engage executives and their teams in improving their personal performances in tangible ways.

I now know that I am happiest “helping people help themselves” but the ‘how‘ part has eluded me for some months.  Even with the diagram published by the Harvard Business Review, I still struggled in the trade-off between consulting (a 30+ year veteran) and coaching.

Here is where I am today:

• I have a wealth of experience in facilitating, problem identification and scenario development, supporting executives in grappling with tough decisions and helping executives work with their teams and helping the teams work with their executive.  This sounds peculiar, I know, but how many times have teams rolled their eyes at a meeting, said nothing in the meeting but been vocal around the water cooler, in hallways and with anyone who is prepared to listen to their dissatisfaction with the decision.

• I have been uncomfortable ‘coming up with answers’ as I really don’t know the nuances of the organizational context.  In contrast, I am very good at defining problems, engaging people in and around the problem in a process of ‘unpicking’ the problem knot while not being sidetracked by symptoms and facilitating scenario development with those who are steeped in the organizational context.

• As an executive consultant with a coaching focus, I can rove through the difficulties you face by asking powerful questions, play various roles you need, use life stories to illustrate behaviors and outcomes and help you help yourself by getting to the best solution in your context.  I am not responsible for ‘telling’ you what to do: you carry that responsibility and are accountable as a capable leader.

• You don’t get a voluminous report that justifies the position I have taken and represented in the recommendations.  You get a dynamic interaction which results in an action plan to change your future or a part of your future, we give other feedback on the process and look to improve the level of trust and imagination (with trust, more lateral solutions fall into our reach and we can plan for the increased risk as a natural consequence of more ‘edgey’ scenarios.  And, you also get the kudus of success and know you have a backstop where the plan did not work as expected.  You get a thinking partner walking a mile with you in your shoes.
  

We focus on the future, we are relentless in looking for better individual performance and we do this by you discovering your own path.

• This outcome is successful coaching.

• Now, really successful coaching sees you learning how to coach and applying the principle to your teams and helping them increase their performances, work more cohesively as a team and feed back your bad behaviors to you in a supportive way.

• Each person is seen, heard and understood.
  

Isn’t this what each of us craves – the recognition of our strengths and contribution?