COACHING
Everybody Needs A Coach
What You Need To Know
Google Chairman and former CEO, Eric Schmidt recently spoke about the best business advice he ever received. His unqualified answer was to get a business coach:“ I initially resented the advice [ to get a coach ] because after all, I was a CEO. I was pretty experienced. My argument was,‘ How could a coach advise me if I’ m the best person in the world at this?’ But that’ s not what a coach does. The coach doesn’ t have to play the sport as well as you do. [ The coach has ] to watch you and get you to be your best. A coach is somebody who looks at something with another set of eyes, describes it to you in […] words, and discusses how to improve your performance.”
Bill Gates noted a similar idea in his TED Talk:“ We all need people who can give us feedback. That’ s how we improve.” According to a survey in the Harvard Business Review, today’ s business coach is heavily involved with the whole process of scaling up a company. As a business coach, I bring the best practices in business and personal development from a wide variety of sources. As business has become more complex, business owners are increasingly turning to coaches for help in many areas. Good coaches do more than influence behaviors. They are an essential part of a senior leadership team’ s strategic thinking and execution planning, providing knowledge, opinions, and judgment in critical areas.
SCALING UP In his latest book, Scaling Up, Verne Harnish identifies three fundamentals“ that drive every-thing else that’ s important in business.” Those fundamentals are as follows:
1. Priorities— Business managers should be able to articulate their main priorities for specific time periods, such as for the year and for the quarter.
2. Data— Performance should be measured against an objective metric.
3. Rhythm— Establish“ daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual meetings” to stay on track with stated goals.
Certified Gazelles Coaches, trained on the Scaling Up methodology, work with business owners to implement these three fundamentals in their businesses.
CASE STUDIES Stop Hunger Now, an international hunger relief organization in Raleigh, North Carolina, was struggling to adapt to its rapid growth and an unprecedented demand for its services, experiencing 57 percent annual growth for eight years. As a result, the organization quickly outgrew its original operational framework. After discovering Verne Harnish’ s book, CEO Rod Brooks and his management team successfully applied the principles they learned in order to course correct and meet the demands of their new organizational landscape.
Stop Hunger Now used the Gazelles One-Page Strategic Plan, which streamlines and simplifies an organization’ s core goals, values, and objectives. Everyone from senior management to part-time employees became aligned around a common purpose and plan of action. The organization also conducted a“ daily huddle”— a seven- to ten-minute check-in at the beginning of every day. This huddle sets the tone for the workday and helps each team member appreciate his or her contribution as a part of the larger whole. As a result, the entire organization became significantly more productive and reenergized in just a few short months.
Carolina Partners in Mental Healthcare— the largest outpatient private mental health practice in North Carolina— has been in business for over twenty-two years. CEO and cofounder Stan Monroe realized that as the company continued to expand, it became an increasingly complicated operation, so he decided to invest in business coaching. When he was asked to evaluate the value of business coaching, he explained that when you’ re in charge of a company, your proximity to the business can create“ tunnel vision,” which can be detrimental.“ You get too close. You can’ t see it clearly. You’ re in the weeds. Jim helps us take a hard look at our weaknesses and helps us to understand what we’ re good at and what we need to be better at.”
THE ROLE OF THE COACH A business coach serves four critical roles for their clients:
• Co-architect – The CEO has to be the head architect of the company’ s growth. The Coach acts as a co-architect, working to create a vision, develop a plan, and create and manage the team that is responsible for ensuring the plan is executed wisely and to the best of everyone’ s ability.
• Teacher – Coaches provide education on skills, tools, and
12 | SPRING 2017