Stop Going It Alone

I get asked a lot what coaching actually does for someone who is already very good at what they do. I’ve thought about it, because that’s who I tend to work with. 

Our paths cross in moments of big change and high complexity. Sometimes it’s a change they chose, and sometimes it’s a change happening around them. Either way, they want to get through it without lowering the bar they hold themselves to.

Here’s how I think about it: we're always trying to get somewhere. You’re here, and you want to achieve something, or finish something, or be better at something, or or feel differently about something. Between you and that thing, there’s a gap.

If the thing is sending a routine email, you don’t need a thought partner to cross it. But if the thing is stepping into a role twice the size of your last one, or leading a team through a change nobody has a playbook for, the gap starts to compound. Suddenly there’s resistance: so much to do, a way of operating you haven’t learned yet, real questions about who you are in the new seat, and the plain tactical problem of what to prioritize first. Once you're in that messier territory, it gets hard to go it alone.

And there’s no real reason to. But if you’re used to being the person who figures it out, asking for help can feel like a new muscle. 

I think about the collaborative work I did at Google. Nobody there thought twice about pulling in a partner to solve a complex business problem; that was best practice. It said nothing about you and your competency. But this other category of complex decisions you have to make as a leader, which more or less boils down to “the how”-- how you make decisions when things are changing quickly, how you direct your team when you’re new in your role, how you prioritize without the benefit of muscle memory-- gets personal. And it can feel overly vulnerable, or even ill-advised, to bring anyone into it, so you go it alone.

Your track record says you’ll figure it out if you white-knuckle your way through the uncertainty. And you will. But maybe there's a better, more expansive way than brute force. 

That's what coaching opens up. It's a bridge across the gap between where you are and where you're headed, so you can get there with ease, agility, and conviction: a walking path with a scenic overlook, instead of fighting the current to cross the river.