200 50 TOPEXECUTIVECOACHES
outsider, it is often easier to challenge the conventional wisdom and question
the embedded truths that block creative new thinking.
I have another strong bias about the role of a coach at the highest levels of
an organization. In my view, an effective coach must build a long-term trust-
ing relationship not just with the top leader but also with the senior-level exec-
utive team. Since the CEO is the most inf luential person in the organization,
some might argue that a coach should focus solely on that position. But by
working with his or her direct reports, the coach can help the leader harness
that key group to achieve two benefits. By gaining access to the diverse views
and perspectives of the senior management, the coach can better serve the
CEO through a richer understanding of both the strategic and organizational
opportunities and constraints. And by becoming a resource to the top team,
the coach creates value by helping to build its capability and alignment with
the leader ’s objectives and priorities.
The greatest skill a coach can bring to the task is the ability to listen ac-
tively. When coupled with trust, careful listening yields information and in-
sight that can be used to develop the organization’s own understanding.
Essentially, the coach’s role is to hold up a mirror to help the organization see
and evaluate its current position and future options, and to decide what path it
should align around moving for ward. The strategy coach should not be seen as
the guru with all the answers; this is a role more often adopted by strategy
consultants who may bring diagnostic frameworks and prescriptive models to
analyze the company’s competitive position and to develop strategic options
and priorities. In my experience, however, most organizations are awash in
strategic initiatives and operating imperatives. The problem more often is that
their strategic ambitions far outstretch their organizational capabilities, a fact
that gives the more organizationally focused, implementation-oriented coach-
ing model its leverage.
But I’m not suggesting that the coach is a blank slate. There is always a rea-
son why an organization approaches a particular coach. In my case, that reason
relates to the research and writing I’ve done around the strategy and organiza-
tion ofmultinationals or, more recently, the impact of transformational change
on the roles of management throughout the organization. Like other strategy
coaches, I’ve also had the benefit of seeing more than a few companies
through global reorganizations or strategic realignments, experiences that
would be once-in-a-career events for many managers. Although the nature of
my research and experience lends itself to providing concepts, frameworks,
and models to my thinking, as a coach I don’t lead with these. I don’t want to
come into the organization with a hammer and bang away at something that