86 50 TOPEXECUTIVECOACHES
on w ith precision and effectiveness. Philosophically, this approach assumes
that people best learn the skills they need to use in order to be successful.
Urgency trumps importance most of the time in real life, so I believe in cre-
ating urgency as part of a coaching strategy.
Ifthe leader is working on interpersonal skills, I often recommend that he
or she attend an intensive class so that he or she has a good basic under-
standing of the skills involved and has experienced some practice and feed-
back. This provides us with a common language to use. We then meet a week
or two before the first performance opportunity we have agreed on and prac-
tice using the skill in that situation. At times, we have what amounts to a re-
hearsal, stopping for feedback and rethinking the approach. We work on a
strategy for success in the situation; we also troubleshoot the performance,
identifying ways to recover and succeed if problems occur.
After the actual performance, we debrief either in person or on the
phone, discussing what worked well, what did not, what was learned from the
exper ience, and the next steps to take. This process continues until the goals
we established at the beginning are met or until we mutually agree that it is
time to identify new goals or bring the process to a close.
The most successful coaching experiences are always ones where the
client is personally eager to learn and develop, seeing it as in his or her own
interest rather than going through the motions to fulfill a requirement or
please a boss. Sometimes, this is because he or she sees an important oppor-
tunity; sometimes, it is because the person feels an urgent sense of dissatis-
faction with his or her own performance; occasionally it is both.
A successful coach is one who is willing to partner with the client and is not
afraid to confront the client with difficult feedback or challenge him or her
with possible difficulties and complexities. I personally judge a coaching en-
gagement as successful when the client surprises him or herself with the suc-
cessful results of performances we have worked on and applies the learnings
to other opportunities. I am always happy when we end a coaching engagement
with the sense that the person has developed an “internal coach” to take him
or her to the next level.