What can Coaching do for you?
As a professional who has been working in your field for many years and have rose through the ranks of an organization or have built a successful business, the question is what can coaching do for you?
Consider professional athletes whether in a team sport like football, baseball, and basketball, or an individual sport like tennis or golf, coaches provide stability and anchor to your skills so that it will not drift away. They are not there to teach you how to hit a ball, or throw a ball, they are there to refine your technique and keep you stable. Coaches should be very familiar with the athlete’s abilities to the point that they can spot subtleties that may be causing them to veer off their game. Often athletes need to get a new perspective on what they are doing and reset their mindset so an effective change can be made.
Business coaching is no different. A manager or business owner may be experiencing a drop in sales, or a drop in organizational performance and are looking to turn it around. A coach will look for clues as to why the performance has dropped off. Most often it is stemmed from the leadership. A common mindset of managers is that they have been successful in how they managed the business and a change in approach is not necessary. Usually that is not the case especially if the performance has dipped. A coach will work with the manager to help them change their perspective and help them reset their thinking in what they need to do. For example, a drop in sales may require a change in marketing approach which the manager has been resistant. Another example is the group is not responding well to the leadership and it could be that they feel alienated. A lot of times, managers will not see that. Coaches can help make this change. The big sacrifice with this is that coaches ask the managers to check their egos so real improvements can be realized.
If you think coaching will not help, think again. Top athletes like Tiger Woods and Roger Federer are always working with a coach to help them improve, even though what they have done in the past has worked.