Executive Coaching - A Guide For The HR Professional.pdf

David’s Story 141
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meeting in my office. I received a call I had to take because of some
sort of problem. I remember talking the fellow on the phone through
a solution for the problem, while my coach sat and watched me “in
action.” I hung up the phone very proud of myself for having so
quickly and easily solved the problem. Then my coach commented
on how I had just solved the problem, rather than having helped
the person involved figure it out himself. Ouch! I knew better, even
preached this to my own people, but here I was playing the hero as
problem solver rather than being a good manager. If I had done some
teaching instead, maybe the next time this person would be able to
solve the problem on his own.
I still think about that situation often, constantly pushing myself
not to provide answers, but to help others find them and, more
importantly, to make it a repeatable process. Sitting on my desk is a
card that reads, “Don’t Preach, Ask Questions.”
The lessons I took from my coaching relationship have lived on in
my new career as a consultant in the financial service industry. While
I am hired mainly to help organizations with sales management and
product strategy issues, my clients get a “coach” thrown in as part
of the relationship. I am particularly careful to focus on helping others
learn how to solve their own problems and to teach them to create
decision-making processes rather than trying to solve all of their
problems.