Selecting a Coach is a Good Time to Think about Feedback

Once you have decided that coaching is the developmental approach you would like to take, the next step is to choose the right coach for you.  Recommendations from colleagues are helpful in terms of coaching effectiveness, but coach selection also requires some important personal considerations.  Will you benefit more from a coach with an outside perspective or internal shared experiences of your organization?  How do you want to feel when you are working with your coach?  Do you want a peer or an authority figure?  How do gender, race, industry experience or other characteristics influence the way you will work with your coach?  How important is it to you that your coach have a primary relationship with you and not share your feedback with your boss or HR department?

In Your Executive Coaching Solution (Davies-Black, 2007), Joan Kofodimos suggests that a coach should:

• Provide structure in the development process
• Maintain confidentiality
• Balance supporting and challenging you
• Help you ask for and receive feedback
• Assist in clarifying your true strengths, values and purpose
• Broaden your perspectives
• Teach concepts and skills
• Influence how others view you 

In addition, experienced coaches are also careful not to hinder your ability to learn, grow and change.  They want you to take independent action and are not there to be your cheerleader, your therapist or your de facto manager or boss. Most importantly, you want to pick a coach who can raise your developmental issues as an objective party and can show you how your behaviors affect others.

Coaches need to demonstrate that they understand and respect your values and concerns. You're more likely to open up to a coach who creates a safe, confidential and non-judgmental environment.  However, it is equally important that coaches provide challenges that motivate you to perform beyond your usual habits and behaviors. There will be times that your coach’s role will be to confront you directly and encourage you to see the impact of your actions; and probe the motives and assumptions underlying your behaviors.

Returning to Joan Kofodimos’ list, it is important that you understand how a coaching experience is structured.  The usual steps are:

1. Establish the coaching relationship
2. Set expectations and the time frame
3. Seek feedback from others using instruments, interviews, or other tools
4. Review feedback
5. Create a development plan
6. Work the plan including implementing new behaviors
7. Hold regular coaching meetings to review and assess

Regarding feedback:  it is very important that you receive authentic feedback from which to build your developmental plan.  Skilled coaches understand confidentiality and how to solicit important data from your peers, subordinates, superiors and other stakeholders.  Over time, one of the results you can expect from a coaching experience is that you will grow in your ability to create relationships where you can ask for honest feedback on an ongoing basis.

Instead of encouraging dependence, your coach should teach you how to manage your development in the future. After an initial assessment, a good coach shows you how to form links with colleagues and teaches them how to frame useful, specific feedback instead of vague judgments.

Your coach will teach you to ask for feedback and manage the conversation without being defensive. This includes learning how to determine which feedback is relevant and valid, prioritize the issues you need to address and figure out how to handle them.

So now that you have a clearer idea of the coaching process and the key role that your coach plays in helping you establish your feedback loops, you should have a better idea of what kind of coach will bring out the best results for you.