I was sent the biography of my coach, and he’d accrued an amazing array of life experiences, skills and hobbies, and all around the world. That his background wasn’t medical nicely broke the usual moulds of development that I’d been exposed to. Beyond my huge respect for all his achievements, our personalities really ‘clicked’. He understood what I meant when I articulated various scenarios and he seemed to recognise my vulnerabilities. This was someone I could trust.
After we established some ground rules to maximise the usefulness of the coaching, I identified a few scenarios that I felt under-prepared for – these included leveraging a team, negotiating contracts and dealing with difficult colleagues.
Coaching is very different from mentoring. Rather than being given the answers, coaching is about finding the answers within yourself. Coaching involves exploring and challenging your perceptions, and this requires an honesty and introspection. A coach is really just there as a facilitator, though mine also imparted some advice too – flexibility was one of his principles as a coach.
Over the planned 5 sessions, we deconvoluted the problems that I foresaw for my next career stage, at a pace that suited me, and with many de-tours into related topics. Coaching requires regular engagement and plenty of effort during the sessions (online meetings), but in truth I really enjoyed those interactions, even though I was actually being set quite difficult mental tasks.
Looking back, of course it’s impossible to ascertain exactly the impact that my coaching had, but I sense it was huge. I have absorbed and applied the learning over the last 18 months as if it was my plan all along. Not immediately, as it took a while for the sentiments to embed, and for relevant scenarios to arise. But now in certain situations, I have a few additional abilities that I didn’t have before, which I put down to my coaching.
I also believe there is great confidence to be taken from knowing that you’ve done a little work on your weaknesses! And, importantly, I was more than ready for my new role as a result of this experience.
