My toughest client

This weekend I got fired by my toughest, and favorite, “client.” He’s my son Noah, and he’s five.

On Sunday he decided it was time to take of the training wheels and learn to ride his bike with two wheels. So my wife and I took turns giving him advice on how to balance and steer without the training wheels.

My wife has a nurturing style, and held carefully to his seat while he pedaled. I was a bit more aggressive, and let Noah go once he got up some momentum; when I couldn’t keep up with him, he took a spill in the grass.

When my turn to coach him came around again, he said to me, “I like you for baseball coaching, but I like Mom for riding a bike. I want her to show me from now on.”

The above story is not so different from how clients and coaches choose one another. We all have different styles. Sometimes your style isn’t right for what the client needs.

A good coach can and should adjust his or her style to be more effective for the client. But sometimes, there isn’t a good fit and the client prefers someone with a different approach and style. That’s fine.

Or, you can adapt.

In this case, I got “rehired” within the hour. The temperature outside was 85 degrees and humid, and my wife needed a break after round after round of running, crouching down, and holding Noah’s bicycle seat. Noah had to choose whether to go inside and stop practicing for a while, or work with me.

He chose to work with me again, emphasizing, “But don’t let go until I say!” I agreed to coach him like my wife did, and held onto his seat until he told me it was okay to let go.

In fact, as I write this from my home office, he is clamoring for me to go outside with him to work on his riding. Even the toughest “clients” sometimes take us back — as long as we know how to listen to feedback and adapt when appropriate.

POSTSCRIPT TWO DAYS LATER: After about a half hour with my wife and I, and then lots of practice on his own in the driveway, Noah is riding his bike around the block — as if he had been riding for years! It is absolutely amazing to watch how little kids can fall, pick themselves back up again, and quickly learn to do something they have never done before.  As in executive coaching, our “clients” are sometimes the best coaches of all.

Coach from the inside out AND outside in

This past week I got to work with a former client of mine who is now an extremely successful executive coach. We worked together on a proposal.

He wins many jobs because his methodology leads to rapid improvements and results — and makes his clients feel great. That’s because his coaching (like the method we teach at The Center for Executive Coaching) focuses on both the leader’s inside state and external behaviors. A good coach needs to work with clients on both — and too many get stuck in one or the other.

Many executives lack the right focus, mindset, beliefs, and attitude to effectively mobilize people.  They have the skills, but lack the right orientation and state of being. Therefore, they fail to engage their colleagues and gain their commitment through authentic and powerful communications. Or, they need to develop better judgment to make more effective decisions that takes the organization where it needs to go.

Others have the right mindset and “inner game,” but lack the raw skills to get the results they want. They never studied appropriate influence, motivation, negotiation, and other conversations. A good coach can rehearse the right types of conversations to have for a given situation.

There are other ways to look at coaching, besides “inside out” and “outside in.” For instance, the most effective coaches focus on the mind, heart, soul, and body of the client. Mind refers to beliefs and critical thinking. Heart is the ability to forge relationships and connect with others. Soul is about common values and vision. And body means that the client is recharging and doing things to stay healthy in a stressful environment.

I hope your approach to coaching is comprehensive, addressing all of the elements that make for an effective leader.

How a legendary “old” pro taught a new up and coming hotshot a thing or two

This past week I had the pleasure of seeing living tennis legend Martina Navratalova play at my club with a young 15-year old hot shot junior player.

During warm-ups with her coach, the 15-year old looked unbeatable. She had huge power, accuracy, and youth on her side.

But Navratalova — now over 50 years old — creamed her. How? By playing smart. The junior was a one-trick pony, all power to the middle with the occasional winner to the side.  Meanwhile, Navratalova mixed her shots up — some topspin, some underspin, some deep, some short, some to the left, some to the right. Even though she was older and arguably had less power, she won.

A lot of what we do as executive coaches is show the up and comers how to develop the kind of flexibility and smarts that Navratalova has. Lots of “hotshots” have a single way of influencing people, whereas more seasoned executives know how to use different styles and strategies for different situations. The same is true for motivating employees, thinking about strategy, making decisions, and switching from long to short-term perspectives.

This “style flexibility” is key to ongoing success. Up and comers sometimes are myopic. They need to learn how to see the whole court and plan their games more strategically.

That’s where we come in!

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, his lack of a power base, and how an executive coach could have helped

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was featured in a Wall Street Journal headline this week that stated that his lack of a power base outside of the White House has hurt him badly during the politics around the firing of 8 attorney generals.

One of the areas that every executive coach needs to cover with clients is their power base. How strong are the client’s relationships with colleagues, employees, managers, and various key people outside the organization (the media, investors, community leaders, customers, vendors, government, etc.)?

Managers focus so much these days on analysis that many of them tend to neglect their business relationships. This is a huge mistake. The less competent executive with strong relationships almost always ends up being more successful, because she/he has a network to provide sound advice and to give cover if needed. We spend so much time planning business strategy; why not develop a plan to build our power base?

That’s why The Center for Executive Coaching spends a good deal of time teaching our members how to assess an executive’s power base, and take steps to improve it.

By the way, how is YOUR power base?

The first two minutes of a coaching session

Recently I worked with a coach who did something at the start of a session that I think all coaches should do: He took a minute or two to get grounded.

We sat down and he said, “Let me take just a minute to get grounded.” Then he sat. By the end of the moment, he was more centered and focused, and ready to generate a great session.

It’s a wonderful technique, one that lets a coach get focused on the matters at hand, the client in front of him/her (or on the other end of the phone), and drop personal issues or considerations that could distract or interfere.

When you get grounded, you can condition yourself to be oriented in a few ways:

1. The blank slate. Here, you are wide open and ready to listen to the client’s point of view, without prejudgment or adding your own “junk.” That way, you can provide your clients with the rare luxury of truly being heard.

2. Listening “for” something. Here, you can ground yourself like a laser beam, listening for a particular viewpoint or way of being that can help the client improve. For instance, you might listen for signs of commitment, blind spots, limiting assumptions, resignation, or behaviors/language that might be holding the client back.

3.  Assessing. When you assess, you are testing different hypotheses about what might be the root cause of the client’s performance issues. You can hone in on a logical, comprehensive framework to get to the bottom of a problem.

4. Listing from the point of view of another person. Here, you can ground yourself to think like one of your client’s colleagues or employees, and try to understand how that person would react to the client. If you are coaching your client to improve professional relationships, this is an excellent orientation.

There are many other perspectives you can take. By grounding yourself the first two minutes of a session, you can be sure to be focused and “on point” with the right orientation to get maximum impact.

Before you leap into results and answers…

Many students and members of the Center for Executive Coaching, and many executive coaches, make a common mistake when they work with clients: They rush too quickly to answers and supposed results.

It is perfectly acceptable, and in fact necessary, to take as much time as you need to assess a situation with a client before jumping into solutions.

Spend a couple of sessions asking questions to understand the client’s situation, style, biases, and ways of processing information. Are they linear thinkers or more holistic? Do they emphasize the bottom line, relationships, status, technology, or tasks? Are they short-term, medium-term, or long-term focused? Take the time you need to understand what makes your client tick.

At the same time, ask the questions you need to ask in order to understand a situation fully — before jumping to conclusions.

One way to do this is through the process of inquiry, or asking a series of open-ended questions. Questions include: How would you describe the problem? What is it costing you and your organization? What have you tried to fix it? What has worked and what hasn’t? What would be an ideal outcome in this situation? What do you think are the root causes?

Even in inquiry, I find that many coaches hide suggestions with questions. For instance, “Have you tried….?” is really a veiled way to get to solutions.

Be patient. Get to know your client and the situation. Let them know you need a bit of time to do your own assessment. In my experience, clients respect coaches more when the coach insists on taking some time for their own analysis — even if the process takes a bit longer. Plus, you get deeper insights and better results.

From $80,000 to $1.2 million per year as a coach

I’ve been working with a coach for 6 years now and he has finally hit the stratosphere.

While I’ve promised not to reveal any confidential information, this individual was a private high school teacher 10 years ago and gradually made a transition into coaching top executives. Each year he saw his income double and this past year he tells me he earned $1.2 million!

Here are some keys to his success:

1. He took the skills he learned teaching drama and theater to his students and found a way to apply those skills to fill a need that many top executives have.

2. He talked about his coaching NOT in terms of what he did, but in terms of the results he gets.

3. He developed some truly innovative programs for executives that nobody else was, or is, doing.

4. He gave workshops at leading insitutions, like Esalen, which increased his network of contacts and put him in touch with executives. Over time, he networked his way into the offices of some C-level executives.
5. He kept “talking his way” into meeting with top executives, showing them value, and getting more and more referrals. He is fearless at walking up to a C-level executive at a billion dollar company and starting a conversation.

6. He has no qualms about charging $30,000 or more for a weekend seminar/workshop or $10,000 minimum for a couple of months of coaching. Perhaps he came into coaching a bit naive, and so asking for amounts that many coaches consider to be unreasonable was not an issue for him.

As they say on diet commercials, “results not typical.” Still — it is so inspiring to have worked with him over these six years and see these remarkable results.

What are we working on now? Well, not marketing, that’s for sure! Now we are working on helping him scale his firm so that it can grow and still deliver top service.

The limits of “Certification”

At the Center for Executive Coaching, we are lucky that our students are almost uniformly people with an outstanding track record. Seasoned executives, entrepreneurs, psychologists, and degreed professionals complete our program.

They already have the credentials required to build credibility with a C-level executive.

But every once in a while a prospective students calls and says, “Tell me about how powerful your Certification is in the marketplace…” When they do, I roll my eyes, because this person does not quite understand how CEOs go about hiring a coach.

First, CEOs don’t wake up one morning and say, “Gee, I need a coach.” And, if they do, they don’t say, “Gee I better find one who has a Certificate.”

We show you the effective way to communicate what you do and position your coaching services.

In brief, it comes down to a few keys:

1. Choose a target market.

2. Show the executives in that market how you can solve their most pressing problems and bring immediate, compelling value.

3. Get visible in your target market.

4. Be credible, trustworthy, and somebody that an executive can relate to.

A piece of paper doesn’t achieve any of those goals. It doesn’t hurt, but it isn’t anything near the determining factor(s).

Furthermore, many certifications focus on the hours you have spent coaching clients. That’s wrong, because the focus should be on results, not how long you spend getting the results. Suppose you spend 2,000 hours with clients getting no results? Should you be “Certified”? I know a financial coach who can increase the enterprise value of a company by a factor of 10 or 100 with his advice to CEOs — and it takes him about 3 phone calls to give that advice and start getting results. He would have to coach 700 CEOs to be Certified by some organizations, and yet his results on a dollar basis (and the fees he earn) exceed 99.9% of Certified coaches.

Now, if your goal is to coach middle managers via the HR department of a large company, certification can be useful. However, I believe that it is much better if you start at the top (and C-level executives usually don’t turn to their HR administrator for recommendations for coaches), and then have the top send you around the organization. That way, you command much higher fees and have access to people who can make required organizational changes when needed.

Be careful of hiding behind Certification. Being “certified” as a coach might help your own confidence and self-esteem, but it won’t get you many clients or top fees.

Which is better: stated commitment or honesty?

Have you noticed that many senior executives aren’t really committed to their companies or employees? They say they are. They talk about passion, vision, mission, and commitment. They talk about how important their employees are.
But once you get to know them (or read about their actions in the business press), you see that their goals are mostly about their own success and fulfillment.

I was a bit naive when I first started out in coaching and consulting, and thought that top executives got that way through self-sacrifice and a focus on the team. Then I had lunch with renowned executive coach Marshall Goldsmith and he set me straight: “Most executives could care less,” he shared. “They are thinking about themselves first, always.”

I chewed on his assertion for a while, thought about my clients, and it hit me that he is right. In general, executives are out to get rich, get famous, or stay secure/safe.

For this reason, I put more stock now in honesty than in commitment. I’m much more interested in having honest conversations with executives about what really matters to them, and that match their actions. Then we can get some results.

Here is an example: I worked with the executive team of a national consulting team that claimed that they valued their people and wanted to create a collegial and fun place to work.

But when I interviewed the “people” in question, the findings told a different story. The consultants in the firm painted a picture of a consulting “sweat shop,” paying good but not top wages in exchange for 5 days of travel per week, long days and nights, and little loyalty in return. People felt used up and rapidly burned out. Women saw no path to having a family and rising to the top of the firm. To rise up in the firm, you had to develop business and “eat what you kill.” And partners tolerated other partners who used abusive language or didn’t develop their people. No wonder turnover exceeded turnover at average consulting firms by more than 50%!

So I gave them a choice, to either stop claiming that they valued their people and wanted to create a collegial and fun working environment, or to start matching their actions with their words.

It turns out that, when they were really honest, the weren’t committed to their people. They were committed to growing their company as quickly as possible and then selling it. They wanted to have their employees stick around long enough for a company to buy them out. And what they valued most were employees who were aggressive and could quickly develop business.

Once they were honest, we could craft a strategy to find and groom people who didn’t mind working in tough conditions, and who liked the “eat what you kill” environment. The firm targeted a different type of new hire, and focused on training people to develop business. They also adjusted their compensation system to pay people for growing the firm, and — once they found a buyer — a retention bonus just for staying around.

Honesty is much more important than one’s stated commitment. Honesty discloses one’s real commitment, even if it is politically incorrect, and let’s a person craft a strategy to achieve what really matters to them.

The above details are not necessarily romantic or noble, but they get results! Don’t force people to adopt your own views about mission, vision, passion, etc.  Listen to where people are really at, and craft a strategy that supports what is true for them.

Two models for offering traditional coaching services online

Please see two sites for models of selling traditional coaching services online. Both are similar, and work.

The first is http://www.centerforexecutivecoaching.com . See “The Coach’s Coach” link. Coaching clients can easily come online and click the link for automated billing.

The second is http://www.market-based-on-trust.com. See the “Get New Clients Now” link. Same thing.

Of course, clients only order if they like the content on each site, maybe receive a few well-written enewsletters, and call me to see if there is a good fit. But the model works.