“I Don’t Need Coaching!”
That can be followed by such thinking as:
• I know it all already.
• I am already doing great.
• I’m too busy for coaching.
• I’m smart enough to figure it out on my own.
• I have my go to people who can give me feedback and tell me what to do.
• Coaching is for underperforming people…for remedial work…for someone who has “issues” and I’m not that someone.
Unfortunately, each of these responses or assumptions reveals a misunderstanding at best about coaching. Furthermore it also may reveal a bias or blind spot about how people grow or learn as well.
Perhaps a good way to help get a picture of the power and value of coaching is to tell you what my sister told me. My sister just retired as an executive secretary in the “C-suite” of Proctor and Gamble in Cincinnati. She tells me that every one of the executives, or vice presidents of P&G on her floor had a coach. She also said that as she saw the invoices she said that they paid a lot of money for that service. That tells a much different story than the false assumptions and conclusions named above.
People sometimes make the mistake that coaching is for remedial work or underperforming people (in the church’s case, underperforming pastors). What is unsaid is that they can’t do it on their own (like me) so they need help (a coach). But in reality, coaching is rather an investment in high value employees or leaders in an enterprise, organization or in our case, the church. Proctor and Gamble and a multitude of other organizations are realizing that their employee development dollars are much better spent on coaching than on other training or education efforts. It is “just in time” it is customized to the person and it just plain works where other training doesn’t move the needle.
In addition, since coaching helps people to focus and prioritize it is a stewardship issue – a stewardship of their time and gifts from God. So if one is busy then coaching is all the more the “go-to” resource to use one’s time more wisely and more productively. Slow down for that hour to think it through and recalibrate choices, options, directions, plans and so on.
How often have you gone to a conference or a continuing education opportunity and thought “this is good stuff” but when you got home you put that three ring binder on the shelf and there it sat, never to be looked at again? We are under the myth that more information or even a silver bullet of new information will transform our lives and ministry (or work as the case may be). But neuroscience is proving our experience right (more books and training and education don’t really help us to change) and our mythological assumptions about learning and transformation wrong. See video of the “Ted Style” talk here: Video of Ted Style talk
If we are really honest with ourselves then what has been said by so many coaching clients may also be said by you: I don’t need counseling, I don’t want to read a book or go to another conference – you’d think I have enough information in my head already. I don’t need to chat with my friends. They will either tell me ideas I’ve already thought of or just be empathetic and that doesn’t help. But I need something. I struggle with frustration and overwork. I sometimes feel stuck and I know I need to work smarter but not harder (because I can’t), so what can I do?
There really is another way.
Let me tell you about coaching…
Better, would you like to experience coaching?
Contact me if you would like some free sample coaching.
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