Adam Coffey, founding partner of The Chairman Group. Best-selling author of The Private Equity Playbook.
Uncertainty is a fact of life. Take the 21 years I spent as a CEO, for example: During that time, there were market swings, a housing crash, the Great Recession and global events that impacted the labor force, manufacturing and so much more.
Here’s the interesting thing, though: When I was a young CEO, I thought I could handle everything on my own. I didn’t think I needed a coach to help me deal with challenges or rapidly scale whatever business I was running. In fact, I thought of coaches as people who couldn’t make it in a real job (but had the audacity to think they could tell me what to do).
I was far from alone in that perspective—the idea of hiring a coach just wasn’t on most people’s radars. As I got further into my career, though, I began thinking about coaching differently. I started bringing in consultants from time to time to get their perspective on dealing with certain problems, and the results were impressive.
Many of today’s leaders seem to understand the value a good coach can bring. In fact, this generation is hungry for coaches. They’ve figured out something that took a lot of my generation a long time to realize: As successful as we were, we probably could have been even more successful if we had been open to coaching right from the get-go.
If you’re reading this, you’re probably ready to harness the power of coaching in your own business. But to do that effectively, you need to do two things: find the right coach and immerse yourself in their process.
Identify the right kind of coach for you.
There are essentially two types of coaches out there: those who approach things from an academic perspective and those who approach them from a practical perspective.
Academic (or theoretical) coaches use a particular system—the entrepreneurial operating system (EOS), for example—to guide their clients. They may not have ever been a CEO or a business owner, but they understand their chosen system inside and out and they base their coaching advice on that system.
Practical coaches, on the other hand, have “been there, done that.” Rather than being trained in one formal system, they’ve built businesses, worked with private equity, made acquisitions, sold companies, etc. They’ve seen a lot in their time and bring their in-the-trenches experience to bear when working with clients.
When deciding which type of coach to use, it’s important to understand that there’s no right or wrong—there’s only what works best for you. Maybe you don’t have a framework or system set up already. If so, then an academic coach might be the perfect choice for you. Or maybe you’re someone who already follows a system, but you need help outside of it. For you, a practical coach might be the best solution. Again, no right or wrong; you just need to honestly assess what type of coach will best suit your needs.
Lean into the process.
Once you’ve decided what kind of coach you want to use and selected someone to work with, it’s time to begin the process. My advice to you is simple: Whatever that process looks like, lean into it fully.
Most coaches have a process that involves multiple phases, such as education, strategic planning, and execution. Some executives are completely open to each phase of the process; they don’t mind spending time learning about different tools and talking about strategic planning. But others want to jump straight into tactical execution. Those are the ones who say, “I need your help fixing X, Y and Z immediately; you can teach me the tools and planning along the way.”
I understand where the latter group is coming from. But I can also tell you that in my experience, the people who are willing to invest the time and energy to go through every step of the process are the ones who consistently have the best results. The ones who skip the education and focus solely on putting out fires simply don’t do as well. Is it a problem with the coaching? No. It’s a problem with how they’re showing up to the process.
Commit to the journey.
As valuable as coaching can be, to get the best outcomes, you need to be honest with yourself about what kind of coach you need.
Then, you need to immerse yourself in the process. Let go of the notion that there’s some kind of magic bullet your coach can give you in a handful of sessions that will help you grow and scale your business to the heights you dream of for it. Instead, commit to the journey, stay thoughtful about the process and remain patient.
I think if you do, you’ll find—as I eventually did when I was a CEO, and as so many other CEOs and entrepreneurs have and continue to do—that working with a coach is one of the smartest decisions you can make when it comes to building the kind of business that surpasses your expectations.
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