WITH THE EXCEPTION of perhaps only Bubba Watson, all top professional golfers have a coach. It’s the same with the highest level of performers in almost any field: entertainment, broadcasting, keynote speaking, athletics, and others. If you want to stay healthy, you might even have an exercise “trainer.” What does that trainer do but help you do what you don’t, or can’t, or won’t do on your own: exercise!
The most surprising thing to me as a business consultant is how rarely people in our industry seek a coach. Owners or executives will sometimes pay to have someone “teach” or “coach” a younger or inexperienced manager or an up-and-coming star, but they seldom believe they need someone to help them.
My experience is that the people who need a coach the most are the least likely to get one.
Maybe it’s ego, or fear of being exposed to weaknesses, or an area in which they feel they already excel. Or maybe it’s the money you have to pay for a coach when you feel the results may be hard to measure. Facing challenges head on, dealing with difficult employees, establishing goals and objectives, and setting the stage for disciplined improvement are all hard issues to face, and even harder to execute.
Some owners simply don’t want to deal with the difficult decisions they really should make. Often their strategy is to take a “wait and see” attitude, hoping the problem will just go away. It seldom does, and often gets much worse. Whatever the reason, almost all business leaders are in some form of denial about what they need and what could improve their economic and strategic position.
Coaches are advisors who get to know you personally, understand your strengths and areas of needed growth, and help you be better. A coach is not an agent who represents you, although they can be very helpful. A coach is someone who comes alongside in your business to help you make good decisions.
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Clients hire advisors when they need people they can trust to accomplish goals they can’t meet on their own. Ergo, the fields of exercise trainers (really coaches) and dieticians (trusted advisors) have exploded because people now have the money to pay someone to force them to stay healthy.
A coach doesn’t just tell you the blindingly obvious things to do — things you already know you should be doing but won’t without direction from an outside expert. You pay coaches for the advice you need to solve problems and set an agenda for change.
As successful as you may be in running your company, there are almost always key areas where you could be lacking. So, you may want a trusted advisor to provide an unbiased perspective and guidance you can rely on.
Bubba Watson has been enormously successful, winning two Masters Championships and the accompanying “green jackets.” But the question I ask is whether he could have been even more successful with a trusted coach. We’ll never know.
What about you?
