Executive Coaching - A Guide For The HR Professional.pdf

Executive Breakaway Section 183
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Here are some of the things the coach and the coaching process
contribute to the learning:
• Focus of attention. Having a coach means paying attention
to the issues. Appointments are scheduled, time is spent,
and discussions are held regarding the relevant topics.
• Self-discipline. Because of the regularity of appointments
and the involvement of other people, it’s a lot easier to
stay on track. Organizational life is full of distractions,
even emergencies. Having a coach is a way to increase
the priority of this change effort.
• Valid data. Change and learning require good data, and
the coach can help bring that about. Information is
needed on what you bring to the job, what actions are
effective, and what is needed in order to succeed. A
coach may offer his or her personal views of your actions
and/or may do some “testing” using standardized inventories.
The coach can interview others in the organization
to get their views confidentially. The coach can
help interpret 360-degree surveys, attitude surveys, or
performance reviews. Perhaps most importantly, the
coach can help you make sense of all this data.
• New ideas. The coach may or may not have held a job
such as yours. But he or she has worked with a lot of
people like you and knows something about how they
have succeeded. The coach brings new perspective to
your thinking and helps you get out of mental ruts and
dead ends. Not all the ideas are brilliant—or will work
for you. Nonetheless, there’s a pool of suggestions
waiting for you to check out.
Executive Coaching. Copyright © 2005 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Reproduced by
permission of Pfeiffer, an Imprint of Wiley. www.pfeiffer.com