COACHING: What do Olympic athletic coaches have to offer those responsible for developing business leaders? When Christine Ohuruogu says she does not understand what is meant by ‘form’ and that finding her ‘rhythm’ is the critical personal challenge her coach helps her with, we are reminded that psychology is as central to athletic coaching as are technique and time trials.

Psychological insight is also key to effective leadership coaching. Pam Jones, a Program Director at Ashridge Business School, says the role of the coach is to help people to “find their own way out of a hole – supporting and challenging them to achieve more than they thought they could and encouraging them to come up with solutions and ideas”.

In a recent article she offers these 10 tips for successful executive coaching:

1. Coaching is for everyone - Coaching can be a tool to help both high performers and to boost those in the team who need extra support.

2. Avoid the advice trap - Do not come up with solutions or give too much advice. Otherwise you will be relied on to sort out all problems and others will be discouraged from contributing ideas. People feel more committed if they contribute to the solution.

3. Ask open questions - Good questions encourage moves towards a solution. ‘What have you done so far? What do you want to achieve? Is there anyone who can help?’ - but avoid leading questions which are just another way of giving advice.

4. Listen - Only by careful listening will you be able to formulate questions that help individuals think through issues. This in turn will help you to build on their ideas and ask questions to support and challenge their thinking and discover what they need to do to progress.

5. Focus on solutions - Focusing on ‘the problem’ and ‘what’s going wrong’ can lead to loss of confidence. It is much more fruitful to focus on solutions, on aspects that are working and on things that can be done to achieve an improvement.

6. Set clear goals and outcomes - Clarify the outcome you both desire, as often the initial issue isn’t the real one. One person Pam worked with wanted to improve their presentation skills, but as they discussed this it turned out that their real need was to gain more confidence to influence senior managers. Once you know what you are trying to achieve, you can set timescales and focus on what is needed to get there.

7. Explore the current situation - It is important to find out what individuals have achieved so far, what solutions they have looked at, and if they have come across similar issues before and how they tackled them. Once you know this, you can explore what else they need to do to move ahead.

8. Develop options for the future - Helping the individual to come up with their own options and next steps is a vital part of the coaching process. This is where the new ideas emerge and where the commitment to develop them comes from. Ask questions that make them think for themselves, such as: ‘What do you think would help you to develop the project? Is there anyone else who can provide support?’

9. Agree a plan of action - An action plan should now be devised, based on these ideas and options, think about who the individual needs to involve, timescales to achieve goals and some review dates. The coach will need to help the individual to get to the final goal through encouragement and feedback.

10. Build coaching into your everyday approach - When people come to you with problems, avoid jumping in with answers. Rather act as a coach - listen and ask questions to help them to come up their own solutions. In this way, you will be helping to develop your team, saving yourself time, and accessing new ideas and new ways to meet business challenges.

*Photo: Christine Ohuruogu winning Gold in the women's 400m, Beijing 2008. Her comment noted here was made in a BBC interview last week.

Further Information

Read Pam Jones’ full article

Executive Development at Ashridge Business School