Leadership Development - Even Tiger Woods Needs a Coach Sometimes

I've often heard the comment after a Leadershipthe same thinking, habits and approaches as when
seminar, "We would never have worked this outthey started up.
for ourselves". Now this is debatable. Given time,If we want to be the best that we can be,
patience and resources we may indeed work itoccasionally we all need some input from an
out for ourselves but who has the capacity tooutside agency, no matter how good we already
put in that kind of effort? There are objectivesare. If Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and John Daly
to achieve, targets to hit, deadlines to meet,seek expert coaching to refine, to check, to
information to communicate, reports to write,experiment, to look for 1% more, its because
meetings to attend, strategic thinking to do, salescompetition is so tough and constant evaluation is
to make, people to motivate, presentations tonot an option. It is easy for flaws to creep into a
get ready and email. Then there's the family.golfer's game, gradually, over time. Their grip
Where do people find the time to work it out forsubtly changes, alignment is off, the club face
themselves?starts to become more closed. All these things
The short answer is "They don't". Time is thehappen without our knowledge, rather like the
enemy. The environment we work in, otherfrog being slowly brought to the boil, we cannot
people's priorities, existing processes and thinking,detect the changes and 'hop out' when we get
culture and values, clouded purpose are just someuncomfortable.
of the things that can constrain effectiveEveryone needs a coach sometime. The number
behavior. To break out of a cycle requires aof times I've visited the pro and he's immediately
decision to take stock of the present situationpicked out an area to work on. He recognizes
and make new decisions to change things in thesomething in an instant that I have been blind to.
future. But which things?So now we have new direction and purpose
Imagine the golfer who plays once a week,moving us more effectively towards our goals.
Sunday mornings, and has done for 20 years.Interestingly, it is the better golfers who visit their
They've had their moments, hit enough goodpro on a more regular basis. The same is true of
shots to keep them coming back for more, butthe best performing companies, they spend more
never really improved over that time. Now andmoney on development and training than less
again they have gone to the driving range tosuccessful organizations.
'work on' something, a tip, from a fellow golfer.So why don't we visit a coach more regularly?
More often than not they have just gone toHere are some of the reasons.....
'practice'. What do they practice? Their habits."I can fix it myself"; It might be painful to hear
They continue to groove the same things thatthe truth; changes may be too radical to deal
are holding them back on the golf course. Why dowith; "I know what they're going to say"; "I've
they do this? Because they cannot see the otherheard it before"; coaches you trust are hard to
possibilities.find; It's a cost - need to protect the bottom line.
Businesses can be like the Sunday morning golfer.The bottom line is that we all need a coach
They have been successful enough to still besometime, whatever our size, rank and
around today. There have been ups and downs,experience. It is false economy to put off using
just enough ups. Changes have been made,experts who can help release potential and
mainly because of external influences, socapability when your hands are full just keeping up
technology has been embraced, quality control iswith business.
in place, the mission statement is on the wall.Prevention is better than cure. Will you contact a
Fundamentally they are the same businesses withcoach today?