Coaching to Bring About Change

My Journey from Telling to Asking to Create a Legacy        

The following short story is true and it’s mine.

I walked out of my client’s office one evening shaking my head. A full year before, I had told him what he could do to help save his company.  Didn’t he know, as many of his counter parts in Texas did in the mid 80s, that unless he did some specific things, his business might die as thousands had already done during this oil and real estate bust?  I was trying to do my job, yet I had to be careful and not dictate to him what had to be done,  and I also had to be careful of lender liability;  This was no time to be sued.  Never in my 20 years of commercial lending life had I seen so many business owners and professionals do and say things to protect themselves in such dire economic times.  This CEO and his business were in trouble and he knew it, yet he was confused and didn’t know what to do.  He, like many in Texas during the mid 80s, had no prior experience of going through a financial storm such as this.    He was also fearful for his business and family and his 50 employees and their families. I was as frustrated as this business owner.

The CEO hired me as his banker and lender because I had been recommended by a mutual friend who had been my customer for many years.  We had similar values and I caught the vision he had for his company and believed in what he was doing. I had refinanced his loans and due to the nature of those loans had spent a good bit of time with him monitoring the progress of his business in relation to my loans.  I provided him with a steady flow of information, although he, like the others, at first resented and resisted the information.  I felt it was the right course of action to monitor our relationship as well as give him some guidance for his business from a lenders point of view.  But I was becoming more and more frustrated.  For some reason I wasn’t getting across to not only this CEO, but others as well.  I was sincere, and what I was telling the CEO’s was valuable, correct and proven information.  But nothing happened!  Except that a bad situation deteriorated further.

Then I realized that being the forceful, demanding banker, as I had witnessed my whole career and had been taught by my managers, was not right.  But wait, wasn’t it true that “he who had the gold rules?”  Weren’t the business owners supposed to listen and obey?

In many ways, I stopped being a traditional banker/lender that night.

Over the next few months, I began a search into my own life purposes, my skills and talents, and into how I might provide greater value to my customers.  I learned that there is never a lack of value in the marketplace.  Value is value and as long as there are people living on this planet there will be things they value, things, services etc.  If a business serves itself – lives to only perpetuate itself – it will certainly die.  But if the purpose and function of a business or individual is to continually discover and provide value for others, then it is impervious to economic pitfalls and has no real competition. In this process I discovered what I call my true asset which I define as that unique quality or gift that is truly me, and when applied properly it always provides value.  When my true asset meets the need of someone in the market place they in turn are willing to exchange something they have that is of value to me, usually currency.  I’d like to share with you what I have learned:

Questions Unleash Power

No matter how much I know, or how right I am, people learn when they’re ready.  Giving my clients answers may not provoke the right kind of change.  Questions provoke thinking.  Questions engage and penetrate the hardened places in our life. Questions disrupt and many times bring about or cause pain to surface. Just as in our bodies, pain and disruption are signs that something needs to change. When confronted with a question our brain goes to work and focuses its considerable energy on working out the answer.

Jesus led his disciples with questions and rebuked the Pharisees with questions.  I reasoned that if I was to be more effective in helping CEOs make the necessary changes for their businesses, I had to ask the right questions.

If I’m to be really effective in seeing business owners engage with the hard work of business change, I must hone my questioning skills, and suspend an inclination to form opinions and provide answers.  Along with crafting penetrating and constructive questions, I have to listen to discover the whole picture.

A consultant is an “answer man,” but a coach serves by prompting and leading.  As a coach, I ask questions endeavoring to help the business owner uncover root causes, discover options, own his contribution to the problem, choose priorities and commit to actions.  Through all these steps, I use questions to unleash power, not to provide answers.

I mentioned in my story, I continually observed that business owners don’t change until they are ready. There’s a moment when they are ready to hear, to answer questions honestly, and to embrace change.  It’s in those moments that I must be ready with the right questions.

My task is to be patient, sensitive and seek to understand what is happening in the business owner’s business and life.  You see, coaching is a process that involves change and development both for me and for the business owner.

Patience Is Required

We all change with time.  If it were as simple as reading a book, getting an insight and then being different, all of us would be nearly perfect. As a coach, I realized I’d have to be patient with people, to wait till they’re ready, and to be willing to serve by guiding, rather than by giving the “right” answers.

My role shifted, that faithful night from the being the answer man to becoming a partner to the business owner helping him discover what is needed, and uncover and remove barriers to moving forward.

Business is All About Relationships

I love the people who lead businesses. Having spent my life working with and serving business owners, I understand some of the pressures they face.  I’ve witnessed the risks of success and failure and seen the results of the temptations to compromise.  I’ve heard their terrors of worry in the middle of the night over their business, their families and the customers they were losing or missing.

Discovering my true asset, which is listening to, understanding, supporting, and encouraging others enabled me as a business lender to add value to the people God called me to serve.

A Fulfilling Journey

Coaching CEO’s and business owners one-on-one that both challenge and encourage them is demanding and requires me to keep growing.   It is also a very fulfilling way to accomplish my vision of helping the people I’ve been called to serve.   I am able to help business owners understand and stay on the path to mastery, rapidly grow, reliably sustain and improve revenue, profit and personal fulfillment.