COACHINGLEADERS/BEHAVIORALCOACHING 75

okay if they are sources for learning in the future. Letting go of the past
comes from learning how to respond in the future. Sometimes, that means
starting small. Out of small things come great and wonderful outcomes.
Leaders who try lots of small things build an infrastructure of success. In
the short term, many of the small things may not work, but in the long term
the cumulative effects of small things are great outcomes.
For coaching to go well, there are some key tenets I try to keep in mind.
First, it’s important to focus on what we do, not what we don’t do. It is easy
to go after the negative. This is often done with assessments when we do a
360-degree survey and find someone weak in two or three areas and say, “ You
are weak, let’s fix it.” I would rather find the two or three areas where the
person can and should excel, and try to drive that. I like to help people feel
that they each have strengths that they can build on to deliver value and that
they should identify and use those strengths. This also means overcoming the
weaknesses by bringing them at least up to par.
The coach needs to care about the person more than the program. I find
that until the person I coach knows that I care about him or her at a personal
level, the professional suggestions are distant. This means talking about
“what matters most” to the person and listening to find out. Most people I
coach are already professionally successful or on the path to be so, and yet
they have paid a price in their personal lives to get there that they sometimes
want to recover. I have found coaching lets me talk about personal issues and
what matters. This might get into family, personal life, values, and how to
find a way to deal with the pressures of business leadership while maintain-
ing personal balance. It’s the most important thing I do.
Leaders give back. Most successful people have earned their right to
prominence, but they also have an obligation to share with others. Until we
give something away, we don’t really feel ownership of it. This means giving
back to people who have helped, by being grateful or giving back through
family, religious, or community groups to gain a sense of the responsibility
leaders have to share with others.
It’s important to enjoy the journey. Things go wrong. This is inevitably the
case. If nothing is going wrong, you are not trying hard enough to do some-
thing new. Learning to laugh when things go wrong, sharing credit when they
go r ight, and being consistent gives one a sense of personal joy along the jour-
ney. Leaders should frequently be asking, “Is this what I really want to be
doing right now?” Generally the answer should be, “ Yes, even if it is hard.”