72 50 TOPEXECUTIVECOACHES
the organization’s strategy has changed or new demands are being made. Per-
haps those changes or circumstances are exaggerating certain behaviors and
magnif ying the absence of others.
When the coaching outcomes have been set and the manager has a strat-
egy for action, her work is clear. I come back to visit her occasionally, to ob-
serve her in action and to provide additional guidance. I get feedback from
her colleagues to see how she’s progressing. We have contracted around a
specific time frame that we both think is reasonable for successful change.
To measure that success, sometimes we’ll administer a 360-degree survey
around those specific behaviors or I’ll interview key individuals about their
perceptions on those behaviors. If we’ve been successful, we may or may not
go onto another behavior after wards.
The Coach and the Client
Every coach brings different experience. My strength comes from my varied
but integrated background. I was educated as an anthropologist but have a
PhD in organizational behavior. I’ve spent time training to be a psychothera-
pist and I have an MBA. I understand business, personal, and organizational
issues. As an anthropologist, I’m able to read situations across multiple levels
and environments.
The ability to gather different perspectives and synthesize them, espe-
cially across levels of analysis, is what distinguishes the very good coaches
from the average. The drawbacks are obvious for those with limited areas of
expertise. A therapist-coach, for example, focuses on the interpersonal issues
but has no appreciation for the organizational. A coach overly versed in busi-
ness matters may not have sufficient appreciation or empathy for the man-
ager ’s life, personality, and dilemmas.
It’s critical that a coach be able to put the executive at ease early on. Much
ofthat, in my case, relates to interpersonal style and even nuances like my
tone of voice. I think a tone works best when it shows it is open to informa-
tion, joint exploration, somewhat soft and paternalistic, but conveying the
offer of help. Even so, there is as much variety in approaches as there are
coaches in the field. While I use a mix of probing questions, concise observa-
tions and humor, other coaches have more confrontational or intense listening
styles. In some analogous research, studies done on the effectiveness of a va-
riety of psychotherapists have shown that more important than a particular
method is the quality of the relationship between the helper and the helped.
Likewise, I don’t think there is one correct coaching method. It’s possible
that two coaches with very different methods could get the same results with