Want to be an Extraordinary Coach? Get your ACT together!
Coaching is a necessary element of high performance. Serious athletes, singers, actors, and top executives have coaches, and it's not because they are terrible at what they do. On the contrary, it's because they are great at what they do and have a desire to keep getting better. Likewise, workplace cultures in which coaching is abundantly available, requested, and utilized at all levels of the organization, continue to get better.
Developing coaching skills and characteristics in organizations is therefore paramount. While there are an abundance of books, training courses, and tools that help people develop coaching skills, I have come across countless people who are natural at coaching without any education or training on the topic.
I have personally experimented with a variety of coaching styles and approaches over the years and have concluded that good coaching comes down to helping the coachee sort through the random streams of thought in their head, get in touch with the outcome that they are committed to, identify the next step(s) that they must take, and feel compelled to get in action.
“Good coaching comes down to helping the coachee sort through the random streams of thought in their head, get in touch with the outcome that they are committed to, identify the next step(s) that they must take, and feel compelled to get in action.
As Werner Erhard, the creator of The Est Training stated, “It is important that you get clear for yourself that your only access to impacting life is action. The world does not care what you intend, how committed you are, how you feel or what you think, and certainly it has no interest in what you want and don’t want. Take a look at life as it is lived and see for yourself that the world only moves for you when you act.”
Extraordinary coaches that I have come across understand this and effectively get their coachees in action. They are also the ones who have gotten their ACT together.
Naturally, we each have our strengths and opportunities as coaches, but it is good to keep these characteristics in mind and do a self-assessment to identify a few areas in which you are doing well as you coach others, and perhaps identify 1 to 2 focus areas that you want to get better at. The best place to get constructive feedback on how you’re doing is from your coachee. Role model being coachable so you can continue to get better as a coach.