How to Pick an Executive Coach
Picking a coach can be a difficult decision. How do you decide one person is
going to be more helpful to your learning and growth over another one? I
regularly find myself with potential clients explaining my approach and
providing them with the best information to help them make the right choice.
The bottom line is that it is a very personal decision and while I’d love to
say there is no bad choice, I’ve actually seen leaders make the wrong choice.
How do I know? They’ve come back to me later and said, “I want to work with
you because it didn’t work out with the other person. I should’ve gone with my
instincts.” What was their decision informed by? What were they paying
attention to and distracted by?
Coaches are very different and I will share more about those subtleties that
can make the difference between a good and a GREAT experience. But first let’s
start with the basics and get those requirements out of the way.
First, you need to be clear on the area in which you are seeking help. There
are tons of life coaches out there trying to break into the corporate world
and tons of former executives who want to consult and mentor, neither of whom
are necessarily appropriate for leadership coaching. What is leadership
coaching? Leadership coaching is focusing specifically on your soft skills as
a leader. By the time your company invests in a leadership coach for you, it’s
probably because you are executing beautifully and your technical/content
expertise (whether it’s engineering, finance, or legal) is strong. They now
want you to focus on taking your game to the next level and that’s about your
soft skills as a leader…the stuff that most MBA programs only touch upon
because students are more interested in macroeconomics and negotiation skills.
Leadership skills are about inspiration and being a visionary, creating a team
that you can delegate more to, so you can be more strategic, powerfully
influencing your peers and key stakeholders, navigating the politics of the
organization, effectively managing up, coaching your team for great execution
and developing a strong executive presence. If any of this is what you are
looking for, a leadership coach is what you need, not a life coach who will
help you determine why you are feeling stuck in your life or a former
executive who will consult to you around your go-to-market strategy and mentor
you on your career. Many people confuse coaches with consultants. If you are
looking for a strategy expert who “has been there, done that” and will help
you navigate the decisions you need to make to take your department/company to
the next level, find the consulting expertise and hire for that. Now that you
are clear on needing a leadership coach, let’s look at the requirements there.
At a minimum, you want a coach who’s had enough experience that you feel
confident the person will add value. Some say choose one with 5 years minimum,
but I also recognize that there are less experienced coaches who are naturally
very good. So years of coaching experience, while on the surface is helpful,
is not the only thing you should be focused on. Ask questions about the
results they help their clients achieve. Also, present an area where you feel
challenged and ask your coach how would he/she approach that. Coaching should
take place to some extent right there and then, during your interview! Is the
coach presenting a credible, powerful approach to your challenge and is your
intuition telling you that it would work? If so, you’re probably talking with
the right person…
Second, your coach needs to have an understanding of your work world. Again,
while ideal that they’ve been there and done that, that doesn’t always make
for a great coach. Make sure they are a fast learner and can quickly catch up
on your company industry or profession and all the lingo that goes with it. A
good coach is a quick study and will quickly adapt and not make assumptions
about your world. After all, they are consulting to multiple companies at the
same time so they need to be able to bounce in and out flawlessly and always
look like they fit in.
Third, determine if the way the coach works with respect to timelines and
deliverables work for you. We think coaching contracts should be a minimum of
6 months up to one year with 360 feedback (online or interview, both are great
and have their pros and cons) and other tools as deemed appropriate for the
learning experience. More importantly, a GREAT coach will not inundate you
with assessments on the front end just so they can get to know you and rely
solely on assessments. They should be using assessments as relevant to your
needs. Someone who inundates you with a 360 and 3 other tools is relying on
too much data and not relying on their own observations. In coaching, we call
that using self as instrument to supplement assessments and extrapolate how
others may be experiencing you. That is invaluable.
So now onto the more subtle things you should be looking for. Chemistry…does
the coaches style match yours? Are you looking for someone who likes to answer
questions with more questions? Or are you looking for someone more
prescriptive who will give you feedback and ideas on how to resolve your
issues but push you to really reflect on that feedback or the ideas to make it
your own.
One of the most misleading things that leaders look for is someone who’s
already done work in their company or familiar with all the key leaders. While
this is a plus, it’s not what’s always going to make for a good coaching
engagement. Your coach can quickly pick up on that information by talking to
HR and getting a download of the culture and key stakeholders.
At the end of the day, you need to feel comfortable enough with your coach to
be able to open up and reveal more of yourself in order to get the most out of
the experience. Your coach needs to come to the table with a set of
experiences, skills and tools to make your learning journey the most it can
be.