Why Everyone Needs a Coach

“Ok – the point guard is right hand dominant. Let’s run 31 trap, force them left and run and jump just after halfway like we’ve trained. On turnovers, push the ball and create tempo. Let’s hustle!” – Anonymous basketball coach… somewhere.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a coach could be “… a person who is responsible for managing and training a person or a team or… is also an expert who trains someone learning or improving a skill, especially one related to performing”. If this is the case, it begs a question – If I want to get better at X, do I need a coach?  You could say yes but that is too simplistic of an answer. A more nuanced answer might be “it depends” but what does it depend on? The context is vital.

Many moons ago, I decided that as a basketball player I was pretty average, but I wondered if I could be a better coach. As I learned, studied, experimented, adapted and tried I started to see patterns and trends. During this stage of my coaching development, I thought that to be a good coach I had to know everything or know more than the players. The reality was that I was often only one step ahead of them on most days on the technical aspects of the game (foot positioning, stance, hands, patterns, angles, drills, reads and so forth) but I was starting to notice the wider systems in which the team was operating. This took time but was essential to building better performance. I started to see the bigger picture.

The team often sees the world through a tactical lens. The coach helps uncover how the team fits within a wider systems lens.

Whilst the coach is often seen as critical in sports, we often overlook the need for good coaches in a business context. Why is that?

Often, it’s the question of value and what problem the coach can help solve. This can be tainted through organisation dysfunction, cultural fit, having the wrong coach in or the right coach but wrong time and space. Likely there is a degree of the Dunning Kruger effect whereby there may be a perception of “she’ll be right” or “we do this stuff already” or “we don’t want people to know more about what we do” and even a degree of fear that someone else external to the team (aka the coach), may point out flaws or critiques that can be confronting. A good coach can hold space between teaching and uncovering the needs of the team which means working through these challenges. This also means working through the individuals within the team all the way through to an enterprise level.

Recently, I was facilitating a workshop – it was going well and there was good discussion on the topics at hand. During one of the breaks, a workshop participant came to me and started to discuss a problem they were having at work. This is an example of a moment whereby a coach (or the skill of coaching) can have a positive effect. As part of the conversation, I asked two question types (How and What) but mostly let them talk and think. Once, we got to a point in the conversation that it was clear that a particular path could be pursued then I switched modes to become more of a teacher/mentor. This helped shape a plan for this person to try based on the needs we uncovered that they discovered for themselves.

A good coach looks to help shape systems and often those systems are people-related. 

A good manager or leader could do the same, but they are often competing with a 1000 other things that they are responsible for. You might often find this in organisations that have gone down the agile way of working route. The business leaders and managers are busy keeping the lights on as well as learning how to operate in a different way of working. The value of the coach comes lies in helping navigate agile practices (team and technical) as well as shaping and supporting the people-systems that unlock the bottlenecks in those systems.

The coaches value then is the ability to see the whole, unlock the constraints and help guide the intent.

“The greatest pleasure I get is when I can get an athlete to achieve something that he or she wants to achieve and couldn’t achieve until I came along and gave them a little help.” Steve Hansen, All Blacks coach 2004 – 2019 (New Zealand men’s rugby team)

So, going back to the original question – do I need a coach? It depends, but if you’re looking for help to: 
•    build good practices, 
•    allow space for leaders and managers to work the business whilst you work on the business,
•    build resilience in people and help them navigate change, 
•    steer teams to be less about activity and more about productivity, 
•    build better relationships and communication 

then a coach(es) can be very valuable!

If those things aren’t valuable, then the coach may not be what you need at that point in time. My POV - engaging a good coach or coaches can only help unlock new layers of success!

"Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better." - Pat Riley