A Great Coach In Action

By David Maister

The Story

When I joined Harvard Business School as an assistant professor, I was not full of self-confidence. In fact, I was sure that I was a hiring mistake. Rather than working at maximizing my performance, I focused on my immediate tasks (my teaching) and just tried to do my job, hoping no one would look too closely at my capabilities and performance. For a while, this strategy worked. I was left alone. But after about six months, there was a knock at my office door. I opened it, and there stood one of my senior colleagues. “Hi, David,” he said, “Have you got a minute for me?” “Sure,” I mumbled. “It’s such a pity that we don’t have time to spend with each other,” he said. “You have your responsibilities and I have mine and they keep us busy. But I was just passing by and thought we could take a minute to catch up.” “Tell me,” he said, “what’s your research about?”

Since I wasn’t doing any research (and we both knew that) I played for time. “Well, I’ve been very busy and I’m not sure I’m really ready, and there are a number of things that interest me and” On and on, I unfolded my excuses. Eventually, as he remained silent, just listening, I said, “But, maybe…just maybe…and I don’t want to make any promises…perhaps professional firms would be interesting to study.” He remained silent for a while and considered my answer. After what seemed an eternity, he spoke. “You know, David, that’s not a stupid choice! Now that you mention the topic, I can’t think of anything major that has been done on that subject. There’s a real opportunity to do something important. “What’s more, nothing in that idea conflicts with what we want to do as a school—I would tell you if it did. Well done! What a great idea!”

Then came the devastating follow-up question: “And what subjects do you plan to research about these firms?” I couldn’t even pretend to have an answer. For perhaps the only time in my life, I was lost for words and remained silent. I will never forget his next phrase until my dying day. He said, “I can see you haven’t thought it through completely.” “But,” he continued, “I know people at some of these firms, and I hear about a lot of the issues they have. Let me pass them on to you, right now, in case one or more of those issues interest you.”

He proceeded to describe a range of managerial and strategic issues faced by such firms. Most people I discuss this with agree that at this point in the conversation I had no choice except to select from among the topics he described and say something like, “Well, I imagine it could be worthwhile to explore some of those topics with those firms.” He went back into silent thought mode. Finally, he spoke again. “David, the more you talk about your plans, the more excited I get. This is great stuff! I can see it now. You’ll do important work, get famous and we will all be very proud of you.” “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, David. I’ll have my secretary come by and give you a typed list of all the professional firm leaders I know. Feel free to contact them, and use my name. Tell them I suggested you call.” He then looked at his watch and said, “I’m really sorry, David, but my duties call me away. I hope I’ll be able to come by soon and see how things are going. I don’t know when that might be, but sometime soon, I hope.” And then he left. Within ten minutes (ten minutes!) his secretary was at my door with a typed list of names, addresses and telephone numbers of professional firm leaders.

Again, I had the overwhelming feeling that I now had no choice. There was nothing I could do but call those people. They turned out to be interesting and helpful, and I was on my way! What turned out to be the thrill ride of a career had truly, finally been launched. And here’s the point as I experienced it: if he had not shown up, I know that it would have taken me a long time to get organized and start investing in my career. I suffer from procrastination as much, if not more, than other people, and self-discipline has never been a strength of mine. It turned out, however, that with skilled coaching I was capable of getting more done than I ever dreamed of, and could achieve a great deal more when coached well than I could when left to my own devices.

The Lessons

When I tell this story in my seminars, I turn to the participants and ask, “What was it about what he did and the way that he did it that made it so effective as a piece of coaching? How did he get this person (me) who was doing OK, but did not really have the car in gear, to get going and start being productive?” (You may wish to pause reading here and write down what you think the key elements were.) The answers people give are numerous, but almost always include the following: The Existence of Real, Agreed-Upon Standards Most people who hear this story observe correctly that there was no debate in our meeting about whether or not I should be doing some research. That had been determined long before, and was a precondition for his coaching to work. His sole task was to help me stay true to a prior agreement. The role of agreed-upon prior standards in effective coaching is often poorly understood in professional firms. Standards in many firms are aspirations, not minimum behaviors. Without unambiguous, nonnegotiable standards, coaching cannot work. Can you imagine the conversation? Coach: “I’m here to help you meet the standard.” Recipient: “I choose not to meet that standard at the moment.” Coach: “Oh! OK! But let me try and persuade you anyway.” The tragedy of many professional firms is that this is exactly what happens in coaching, particularly, for example, between and among “partners.”

In a separate article I will discuss how a firm can achieve an unambiguous “prior agreement” on its standards. However, that is not the purpose of this article, so our discussion will continue as if your firm does indeed have such standards. Enforcing Standards Accepting that there were real standards at the Harvard Business School, when did my colleague begin to enforce them? Most people would say, “The moment he knocked on my door.” It was not only the conversation itself that sent the unavoidable message that the standards were real and enforced. Perhaps even more powerful was the fact that, by his presence, he obviously (a) had been paying attention and (b) was able to respond in real time to my “departure from excellence.” The process of standards enforcement had already begun before he said a word. I remember the feeling to this day, and the familiar phrase that went through my mind: “Oh, boy! Around here, you can run, but you can’t hide..."

Read the rest of this article at David Maister's website http://davidmaister.com/articles/1/40/ All rights reserved David Maister 2007.