Why hire a coach?
As part of my practice, at some frequency I get asked, “Why hire a coach?” At times, it’s a leader considering that for themselves. Others, it’s someone trying to get budget approval to get coaching. Most recently, it was in the context of someone who shared a member of their executive team and some on their board were unequivocally opposed to consultants of any kind. (I shared that is often born out of a bad prior experience.)
Whether it’s coaches, consultants, or any other expertise a company might contract out (think accounting, HR, marketing and the like), I believe there are at least four good reasons a company should hire someone from the outside to help:
They possess skill, muscle, or tools that you don’t. As an executive, knowing what you don’t know and exercising the humility and appetite to develop yourself from someone that can equip you can be a huge difference maker. If you need help with strategic planning and you don’t know where to begin, that’s a great reason to bring in a trusted, credible outsider who can facilitate that for you. If we take it out of organizational context for a minute, it’s why we go to the doctor. When my son sustained a concussion playing football this fall, believe me, my wife and I were extremely thankful for the sports medicine specialists that came alongside us to give him the best care that we were not equipped to give.
The opportunity cost of doing it yourself is too high. Often, leaders get into a spot where they possess the skill to do something themselves, but the tradeoff required to take the DIY approach would keep them from doing something that was far more important. Just because you can do something yourself, doesn’t mean that you should. I recently completed a project for an executive team that they clearly had the skill and experience to do themselves but simply could not devote the time given other priorities that demanded their focus. So they outsourced it and it was my job to effectively act on their behalf.
Outsourcing the work allows you to participate fully. Building on the first two reasons, a leader may know how to do the work and have time, but in facilitating the work in-house, she or he can’t fully participate if they’re trying to run the meeting, engage all participants, capture the notes, etc. Their capacity to participate and contribute at their highest level is effectively compromised. Work from strategic planning to teambuilding are classic contexts for this.
You want access to a neutral and outside point-of-view. This is about managing any internal bias or confirmation bias where the status quo isn’t appropriately challenged. Experienced coaches bring their personal and client experience to the table where like-for-like comparisons can be drawn and learning from others work and best thought becomes possible. Further, outsiders are free to ask the dumb questions that need to be asked. They also notice the elephant in the room that the internal team has long lived with and accepted as part of their reality.
The skeptic would look at a coach writing a blog about why someone should hire a coach as a very self-serving effort. Let’s be clear. Whenever I walk someone through this list and if at least one of them is not true, then my advice is “then don’t hire a coach!” There are plenty of things that can and should be done yourself, or at least within your organization. Still, I think it’s prudent to recognize when any one or more are true, and you need to go get the outside help you need.