I have recently been pondering what brings people to coaching and what holds them back from engaging with a coach.
It is true that more people are now open to coaching, but there is still a significant proportion who are not. So what is the issue?
I recently ran a workshop at the PSI: Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry Conference entitled “Level up your career: How coaching and mentoring can help you take the Next Step.” After introducing them to coaching and mentoring, including the differences and similarities, we invited participants to be either coached or mentored. One attendee, a senior statistical professor, asked the person he paired up with to coach him on a statistical problem. This was a big aha moment for me. If that professor can be coached, then what is stopping others?
One of the problems is that people do not know what coaching is. They are not sure of the differences between coaching and mentoring. I firmly believe that for coaching to work best, it should be non-directive (others may disagree). What is does do is give a safe space for someone to think and explore. As a coach, you are the subject matter expert in the coaching process, not in the thinker's question/profession, etc. Getting caught up in being the expert and trying to understand the problem/solving means you are not giving that space to the thinker and coming back to the senior statistical professor. He is the expert in his work, but he wanted someone else to help him with his thinking.
The other problem I often think is that people see coaching as a “nice to have” and not as “essential” in their busy days. I recently coached a senior leader within my previous company, who had a busy schedule with many meetings, as he was responsible for a large business area. We had a coaching session every other Monday at 8:00 am UK time. At the end of the coaching engagement, he said he viewed the coaching as an essential time to think about strategic stuff that moved the needle and not about the everyday, run-of-the-mill work. This is what coaching provides.
Coaching should be seen similarly to other essential professions and as an essential, safe space to think. Yes, you can try to do this alone, but you won’t be able to spot the blind spots, which a great coach will.
If you would like to explore having a safe space in which to think, please use the link on my contact page to book a discovery session with me.
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