The Coaching X-Factors: The Things That Great Coaches Do
There are two coaches who have made an indelible impression on my life. I have worked with many good coaches in my life—as an Olympic athlete I had access to numerous top experts and coaches in the athletic world; as an employee and communications consultant in the world of high performance sport, I’ve met and interviewed some of the most celebrated coaches and sport-industry leaders around; and now as an executive coach I meet, read and hear about other business coaches all the time—but these two stand out as being more than just good. They are great coaches.
Great coaches challenge you.
The first coach I’m referring to is Sheilagh Croxon, a synchronized swimming coach with over 25 years of international-level experience that includes coaching the 1996 and 2000 Canadian Synchro Teams to a silver and bronze medal, respectively.
I moved from Montreal to Toronto at the age of 16 to train under Sheilagh at the Olympium Synchro Club. At the end of the first week of training as I dragged my sore muscles around the house where I was billeting, I recall thinking that I had never worked that hard in my life. That’s the kind of behavior Sheilagh inspires in the athletes she coaches: the drive and desire to push themselves beyond what they previously thought they were capable of doing. The best part is that Sheilagh doesn’t even realize this about herself. She doesn’t think she’s pushing her athletes towards the impossible, rather, she knows all along, that they can do it. She’s not surprised by great achievements, she expects them – and that expectation immediately causes athletes to raise their own standards.
And the other great coach I’m referring to is Sandra Oliver, a former corporate HR executive who runs Impact Consulting Inc., a team of business coaches who partner with clients to help them increase their effectiveness as leaders and corporate teams. I joined that team over a year ago.
Several years ago I met Sandra at a Christmas party and the first thing I noticed about her is that she has a knack for asking good questions. The right questions. We stood across from one another at the party, chatting and nibbling on hors d’oeuvres, and she asked me a question about my professional career. And the thing about Sandra is that, unlike most people in this uber-speed iWorld, she waits for you to answer. You can’t get away with weak answers either, she actually listens to what you’ve said, thinks about it, and asks more good questions.
On the way home from that party I remember reflecting on how Sandra reminded me of Sheilagh. They don’t look alike. They don’t have the same cultural backgrounds, the same educational or professional backgrounds, or even similar personalities. But what they both have is a tendency to ask questions. They ask things in such a way that you are inspired to reflect.
When I trained with Sheilagh she was constantly asking me questions or asking me to describe things, like: “What do you want the routine to look like?” or “Describe how that performance/move/workout/practice felt?” When I made breakthroughs in my techniques or corrected a particular skill she would always ask me to reflect on what happened and how it felt. She would often ask what I was thinking prior to and during the performance of that skill. When I had weak performances, or was unable to fix a correction she would always ask me to reflect on what happened and how it felt. As a result, I learned consistently from both my successes and my failings. I learned how to lead myself through the reflection process on my own, for every routine part, skill movement and performance. It got to the point that I recognized unhelpful thoughts, habits and feelings as they began to surface and was able to avoid the errors they would cause. Once I did this repeatedly over a period of time, those thoughts and habits would disappear and I would be able to focus even more deeply on perfecting my performance. Her questions subtly fostered a healthy self-awareness that helped reinforce positive behaviours and wean out the bad habits.
Great coaches are continual learners.
Sheilagh and Sandra’s tendency to ask questions is partly a skill they’ve honed over the years and partly a result of another “great coach” characteristic: they want to learn more. Scour either of their personal libraries and you will find shelves full of literature on coaching, coaching theory, coaching-related materials, biographies of great leaders, business and leadership books, and more. They are continual learners.
Sandra is the type of person who gleans knowledge from every article, even if she disagrees with the bulk of an argument; who pulls useful knowledge from even the most dull and endless species of meetings; and who takes any negative experiences and turns them into opportunities to learn and become better. Don’t get me wrong, she’s not one of those aerobic-instructor-like personalities who invoke phrases like “turn that frown upside-down.” She is much more human and realistic than that. She simply sees all experiences, hers’ and others’, as valuable.
What has impressed me even more is Sandra’s desire to become an even better coach. Essentially, she’s already reached the ‘Olympic-level’ of the executive coaching profession, coaching several powerful CEOs and leadership teams across North America, but she recognizes that to maintain high performance (to her that would be consistently going ‘above and beyond’ in serving her clients) she must maintain the discipline of learning and pushing herself to continue improving.
Sandra is a coach with a coach. She works with a trusted advisor to further hone and enhance her coaching skills.
“Are you getting what you need from me?” is a question Sandra asks her clients. As uncomfortable as the pause after that question may be, she actually wants to know the answer. The client’s feedback allows her to adjust her approach or go do the appropriate learning to better address the business issue her client is dealing with so that she can coach him/her better.
“Getting feedback is crucial,” says Sandra. “One of my clients, a well-respected and successful business leader excels at asking for feedback. In every meeting he asks his team for feedback – he welcomes it, accepts it and does something with it. It’s a habit that he’s developed and now it’s easy for him to ask for it…The best part is that it makes him better as a leader and often it leads to better team meetings, better team dynamics, better decisions, and ultimately, a more successful business.”
Great coaches know the business.
Just as sports rules and techniques are continually changing, so too does the world in which Sandra’s clients operate. Sandra feels that she needs to understand her client’s business and industry in order to better understand her client and their environment and provide them with high-value and relevant coaching. She reads the newspaper. She asks a lot of questions. She keeps up to date with industry-related events and policy changes. When she talks with her clients she understands the industry-specific acronyms and jargon and “gets them”.
Sheilagh has been a successful coach at all levels of the sport, grassroots to high performance, for two and a half decades—her success surviving four generations of athletes and several transformations of the sport. When Sheilagh first coached National Team athletes the sport was slightly slower, more focused on the solo and duet events, and the top athletes were older than they are now. As the years progressed, the sport changed to become increasingly team-focused, more acrobatic, and younger. There were significant technical, political, and organizational changes throughout this time as well. Sheilagh still remains one of the country’s top coaches in the sport because she continued to learn, adapt as the sport metamorphosized. She studied the sport, remaining a contemporary of the sport (rather than a past expert), watching out for trends and then improving on them. She has made a commitment to be both a continual student of the sport, just as Sandra has made a commitment to be a student of the business industries of her clients. It keeps both of them relevant and effective.
Great coaches believe in the power of teams.
At Impact Consulting, Sandra brings all of the Impact coaches together to discuss how we can work together to offer new or improved services that better serve our clients. We brainstorm and play ideas off of one another and as a result, the end product is better. We develop ideas for improved technology, we recommend readings, we share our goals, we keep one another accountable and we coach one another.
Leading up to the 2000 Olympic Games, Sheilagh worked within a team of coaches and experts to maximize the team performance. Each coach possessed a specific area of specialization or giftedness. Under the immense pressure to lead our team to success, they consulted with, vetted ideas and supported one another. She knew the power of using another set of eyes to ensure that no details were overlooked.
Both coaches believe in the team-coaching approach. They understand that they will be able to lead their teams, athletes, or clients to a higher level of performance if they harness the skills, talents, knowledge and experience of other coaches.
Great coaches understand that it’s about the relationship.
Both Sandra and Sheilagh have shown me that a coach is most effective when they have a relationship with their athletes/clients. It’s not about having coffee together or hanging out, and most of all, it’s not all about following a program, it’s a process. They may use different terminology to describe the process, but they both understand that the process is facilitated through dialogue. They engage in regular dialogue with their athletes/clients.
They meet. They talk. They partner. They develop a plan. They implement together. They meet. They talk. They learn. They adapt.
It’s not just about the coach. Or just about the athlete. It’s a partnership, rather than a dictatorship, and as result, the results are more meaningful and longer-lasting.
