Using a Coach – What One Well-known CEO Said
Lesson 30 Module 8
Do You Need a Coach?
When a board member asked Eric Schmidt former Google CEO, "who's your coach“ he replied, "I don’t need a coach, why would I need a coach? I'm an established CEO!”
This 41 second Video provides his interesting Perspective.
Are you willing to ask yourself, “Why do I need an executive or job coach, and what would be the difference between working with a coach versus not working with the coach?” If so, you may discover something that almost all professionals in all fields including business, performing arts and, of course, sports, already know.
Things to Ponder About Using a Coach
The following will focus on Executive Leadership Coaching as a resource during a career transition, including the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic. There are many things an executive coach can do with a professional who is making a career change, but this focus will be on the top three benefits that make it emotionally and financially worthwhile to make the investment. I'm making the case that Performance improves faster with coaching.
As an Executive or mid-level professional you are successful in a large part due to your talent with many communication oriented skills like culture building, board level negotiation, sales and marketing, and even recruiting. However, if it’s been a long time since you went through the job process, it is a very different set of skills and a highly specialized process starting from crafting a clear Career Purpose and standout resume to a very different form of networking and interviewing.
It’s much easier for an you to create a vision statement with a team for something outside of yourself, like brand values or data driven business strategy, compared to your own self promotion. Said another way, it’s impossible to see or create the label from inside the bottle.
Working with an executive coach allows your to see things you wouldn’t otherwise see, craft language you otherwise wouldn’t craft and stay upbeat and positive during a process that can be highly personal. So even a great sales oriented CEO should have a coach to guide them through this process especially if the coach has experience and a track record with career transition guidance.
Our recommended executive coach with 21 years as an executive career coach said, "I have never met anyone who would pass up a conversation about confidence."
At all levels of success, every human being has a lot of caveman brain function questioning their capability to succeed. In other words, even the most confident have limits on what they believe they’re capable of, and times when the confidence gets shaken. This is particularly true of something with as much important impact personally, professionally and on your family as as a job at a new job search.
Let’s also not forget that the process is full of competition, rejection and radio silence, and is tied to your livelihood and survival, unlike most other aspects of your life.
A coach acts as a reliable, confidential and up-beat sounding board to help you remember the core purpose of your career trajectory, someone to practice talking about accomplishments (especially if bragging was frowned upon in your upbringing), and just in short being at the top of your game through all the networking and interviewing and tracking of job opportunities required to secure a new role.
A coach can allow you to keep a very high sense of self-awareness and self-worth, which will help you convey the right image when making connections, and more importantly, to keep you aiming at the highest possible challenge for the most fulfilling job the professional can pursue.
In short, in the job search process, confidence is king / queen, and the coach is the catalyst to sustaining the highest levels of confidence.
One of the most important nonrenewable resources you have is your time, and while some executive coaching is expensive, nothing could be more expensive than one, two or three months of being unpaid or underpaid. Most executives that are making six figures could lose tens of thousands of unearned income, or only spend $3,000 - $5000 for an executive coaching engagement that will work wonders on their six-figure salary.
In companies where executive coaching may cost tens of thousands, benefits routinely produce millions more in profit. Price Waterhouse Cooper’s conducted a study showing that the average company using executive coaching appreciates an 800% return on investment.
Not all coaches are created equal ,and the key to a successful coaching relationship is, in fact ,a relationship itself. I highly recommend that you interview at least three and up to five (or as many as necessary) to feel like there’s a good rapport, expertise and mutual understanding for the relationship to be most productive.
The link below takes you to our Coach of choice, Jonathan Flaks. If you have any questions about how you can find a great coach for yourself, please feel free to contact us.
Learn About Executive Coach Jonathan Flaks
Jonathan is a pioneer and an expert in the executive career coaching profession. He authored “Income Double – Half the Trouble” and created the audio program “Who Are You, Inc., Bringing Out Your Best In Business.”
In 21 years he's helped thousands of people confidently get hired faster. His clients have come from or been hired at Disney, Morgan Stanley, Goya Foods, Goldman Sachs, The Riverside Company (Private Equity), The NBA, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, IBM, LEGO, The United Nations and many more!
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