Business CoachingIs It?

Al Walsh

Walsh Enterprises Business & Financial AdvisorsThe Capitalist’s FriendHuntington Beach, California USAhttp://www.awalsh.us walshal1@aol.com(714) 564-2749

There are lots of people out there offering Business Coaching. I read an article today that said business coaching is on the rise. I read another article that said tight-budgets are forcing companies to seek new, more economical methods of developing executive competencies - a phrase that figures heavily in this presentation.

Most of the business coaches I’ve observed interpret their jobs as being motivational speaking. They walk in, deliver a “pump-’em-up” speech, and walk away. If they’re any good at it, the positive effects are felt for a few hours –to- days and then fade away. Not much of a contribution. Little value added.

Some distribute a book or manual. Those have their place, but they don’t serve as effectively as personal contact and follow-up.

To my mind, business coaching is the development of the audience’s executive competencies. Anything short of that is just short-duration “noise”.

When I do business coaching, I try to structure it so that information is imparted - and then reinforced via follow-up. Brief follow-up makes the lessons stick much better. Of course, the primary message is: Think! The audience needs the opportunity to pose comments & questions; both during the initial presentation and in it’s aftermath after they’ve attempted to apply the lessons learned. Effective teachers know that the best methodology is: “Presentation – Application – Follow-up & Clarification”.

I motivate during presentations, but my primary focus is on imparting thoughts & lessons from experience and invoke a response. I’m not trying to tell people how to run their businesses, but perhaps I can offer a few insights that might not have occurred to them – and I engage them in a discourse that hopefully gets the “little grey cells” firing more brightly. My style is to draw the audience out; encouraging their participation. Some business coaches fear audience participation because of their own insecurity. When audiences speak up, I count myself a success. It means I got their attention, and they’ve got their “thinking caps” on; and their executive competencies are advancing. Often, new ideas are generated by the audience. My ego will gladly deal with that.

Business coaching’s not to be confused with business training. If heavy information needs to be imparted, I do it in a classroom setting. As mentioned earlier, when doing business coaching I impart thoughts and suggestions that are primarily intended to get the “creative juices” flowing in the audience’s minds. You can see examples of topics I’ve shared at http://www.slideshare.net/awalsh8174; where this presentation is published.

We all tend to get into mental gridlock and see the world around us in a set way. I try to throw a few “monkey wrenches” into their comfortable worlds and get them thinking in new ways. This is especially fun during the follow-up; after their minds have had a chance to percolate for awhile. That’s when I find out who the real leaders are; because they take the bit and run with it. Natural leaders love to function out of their comfort-zone.

The presentation approach I use is geared to the audience. Sometimes the conversation can become quite aggressive and confrontational. I love it when that happens because it means they’re engaged. Any CEO worth their salt knows that good management teams will at times fight like cats & dogs. The trick is to channel confrontation in constructive directions.

In some respects I view business coaching as being like boot camp instruction: “Break ‘em down and reshape ‘em for their mission.”

The audience needs to be challenged & motivated. I need to get them looking at their world, their business mission, their roles, and their contributions in new ways. I need to draw them out; even if it means confrontation. Finally, I need to have “thick skin” when their minds fire up; and the ability to channel the discussion constructively.

The smart ones soon figure out what I’m doing and turn it into a fun event. The insecure and/or less competent ones either clam up or turn confrontational in a mean, petty way. I seldom have to deal with them. They “shoot themselves in the foot”. Hopefully, they learn from it.

Business coaching is best-done orally. I sometimes provide an outline or brief pamphlet to accompany my presentation, but it’s designed to stress the main goal of intellectual growth.

Reinforcing my main message, business coaching is intended to develop executive competencies.

By the way, any employee can benefit to one degree or another by business coaching. It’s not just for executives. While leaders can benefit the most, any employee can benefit by being drawn out of their comfort-zone and challenged to take a fresh perspective.

Once I was asked to make a finance-oriented presentation to a group of salesmen. We talked about ideas like “the damage caused by uncollected receivables”, and “paying commissions on collected sales”, and “the need for sales to be the eyes & ears of the company; helping identify trouble-customers and keeping an eye on the competition”. You can well-imagine that the presentation was not well-received, and the conversation got quite heated. But they knew I was right, and the feedback I got indicated that they became much more cooperative in fulfilling their proper role. They didn’t like me. Was I successful in my mission? You bet!

So -

Mr/Ms CEO: Is your Business Coach giving you value?

Mr/Ms Business Coach: Do you clearly understand your mission?