I am occasionally, although less and less often, asked why executive coaching works.  I used to be puzzled by this.  After all, no one questions why sports teams and individual athletes benefit from coaches rather than going it alone, and personal trainers are regularly hired to help their clients maximize their efforts at the gym.  My role is similar – I help people who may have reached the limits of their existing ways of thinking and acting in response to the challenges they face in their professional lives, become more nimble and effective in their work.  Why do more and more people turn to executive coaching?

1. Clarity –> Coaching is goal driven, and outcome oriented.  Inquiry about what a person’s goals are, and why, reveals insights about how time is being spent in low-priority activities, and what changes can help minimize distractions.  Too many people either don’t know what their goals have been for the past 30 days, or have made insufficient progress toward achieving them.  Coaching changes that dynamic.
2. Support –>  Many busy coachees, particularly in a competitive work setting, don’t have the kind of trusting relationships where they can discuss roadblocks and brainstorm solutions with colleagues.  Having a coach who is familiar with the firm environment, but removed from it, provides perspective and encouragement that can be hard to come by in the day-to-day press of business.
3. Feedback –>  A coach can offer specific, actionable advice, often helping the coachee to avoid or check their assumptions.
4. Skill Building –> Coaches equip people to develop themselves, by learning how to leverage their strengths, and reinforce weaknesses as necessary.
5. Accountability –>  Once goals are clear, a coach is a built-in accountability mechanism.  If the coachee is not completing the actions they have committed to take, coaching can hone in on the obstacles to success, and alternative approaches for dealing with those obstacles.

What are you doing to increase the odds that you will reach your goals for the next month?