What's My Niche?
How do You Eat an Elephant? My Personal Definition of Exemplary Coaching
I remember one of my earliest challenges as a staff writer within the automotive industry. I was assigned my first technical article that was focused on educating readers on the nuances of aftermarket options for engine rotating assemblies. Whereas I was very comfortable interviewing builders or vehicle owners and telling their unique stories the idea of sounding authoritative and helpful within the realm of long form editorial focused on technical education was intimidating to me at the time.
My editor must have sensed my nervousness. One morning as I was staring through my computer monitor as if the knowledge or way to start the article was nestled between the wires and power strip he calmly approached my desk and asked me, “How do you eat an elephant?”
“I dunno” I said following a broken chuckle diluted by my genuine effort to find the answer.
“One bite at a time.”
He fist bumped me and continued walking down the bullpen of editors and staff writers, confident that he’d said exactly what needed to be said for me to overcome my writer’s block.
I continued to struggle to begin that article that day and eventually pivoted my attention to producing a few quick hit news articles. The dopamine release from publishing within my comfort zone offered reprieve from the brain fatigue induced by this larger-than-life creative challenge I’d created. As the day wound down and I was about to get in my car to head home I heard a question asked my way, “How’d progress come along on that tech article today?”
I glanced behind me to see my Editor pulling out his keys as he was getting ready to leave for the day as well.
“I just couldn’t really figure out where and how to begin.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“I guess not being accurate or knowing where to even begin to make sure this article comes out good.”
“So if you eat an elephant one bite at a time, what do you think the first bite is?”
I thought about that last question for a second, “Study the topic a bit and make an outline that I’m happy with.”
My editor smiled, gave a quick salute touching his key fob to his forehead as he said, “Have a great night and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I look back at that moment and two things stand out for me:
Gratitude for the simplicity in that coaching engagement.
Bewilderment in the effectiveness and longevity of the value that I got from that coaching engagement.
“Eating the elephant one bite at a time” is a mantra and a maxim I’ve shared with others especially as my career progressed and I was put in more complex and higher stakes situations. It was a symbol of calmness through chaos and the original exchange evolved into a very powerful crisis management and recentering tool.
As a leadership and management development coach and an organizational change consultant I strive for every interaction to be as simple, genuine, and lasting in its profoundness. The problems that professionals face day to day are complex but the solutions often aren’t. And oftentimes as professionals, people have the answers within them.
It’s my job to help people uncover and put into action the thoughts and capabilities that were always already there.
My Coaching & Consulting Niches
When it comes to leadership and management development I focus my coaching efforts on helping executives and senior leaders develop their most promising and emerging talent. Whether that’s helping executives with their soft skills to better mentor and guide their staff, or to directly work with their staff to equip them with tools, training, and 15 years of corporate insight to help them evolve into the next phase of their professional development. The reason I focus on emerging leaders and middle managers is for 2 reasons:
When you increase talent density at an organization truly amazing things happen for the organization. Zapier’s Chief People Officer was recently interviewed by Forbes and this is how he defined talent density within the workplace, “Talent density means that every single person in the company has an unusually specific and impactful role as well as the context and tools that they need to succeed at a high level,” he elaborated. “It’s a concept that sounds simple in words, but it's a rare and special thing to pull off.”
When you increase talent density truly amazing things happen for all people involved. Senior leaders can begin to partition more focus on the high impact and strategic work they’ve been putting off. They’re not fighting fires and getting bogged down in areas of the business that fail to leverage their skills and capabilities where they’re needed most. Emerging and mid-level talent start to take deep ownership of their potential. Not by morphing into something completely different than who they once were, but by leveraging the natural strengths and proclivities that allow them to 10x their impact and influence.
When it comes to consulting projects for companies I focus and specialize in a very specific area — complex workplace objectives and change initiatives that affect either several teams or the entire organization. Whether its:
Helping each department work through a systematic and highly engaging process to develop its own team-specific mission and values.
Working with senior leaders to develop compensation philosophy and pay bands by department that are in line with KPIs and the primary objectives of functional roles.
Diplomacy-building efforts that bridge gaps between departments that experience high friction. Every industry has this challenge and I’ve developed an objective and repeatable approach that can be carried across any industry.
Auditing a company’s organizational design and spotting facets of design that are in or out of alignment, then creating a short, mid, and long term strategy to correct the foundational issues that bring a company into total alignment.
How to prepare managers to lead high volume and multi phase projects.
Reviewing and developing competitive total rewards packages that align with a company’s values and overarching goals.
Taking an in-house workforce and equipping them with the tools, training, and etiquette to function at a high level in a hybrid and remote capacity.
I gravitate towards cross-functional and org-wide change initiatives because these sorts of projects are what got me up in the morning as I was developing as a young professional. Ultimately, it was the passion for understanding the interests of others and building objective strategies that galvanized multiple teams around a common goal that caused me to make the move from individual creative contributor to cross-functional operations and eventually Talent Development & Organizational Design.
At the end of the day, I believed and still believe, that if I focus on these two areas (L&M and Change) that I have the highest probability of creating moments for other professionals much the same way that my past editor did for me when I was challenged with executing that first tech article.
3 Tenets that Guide my Coaching & Consulting Perspective
Whenever I talk to prospective new clients I make a point to share what three tenets guide my approach to coaching and consulting:
Peter Block’s definition of what it means to Flawlessly Consult. In a nutshell, it’s a consultant’s job to consult to the best of their ability, not force a client to do something nor to do it for them. Consulting with a servant mindset to me means that I must use every ounce of skill, experience, and expertise to equip the person I’m coaching with the tools and capabilities to execute and act on the change they wish to see. There’s several metaphors out there that I think communicate the same message. At the end of the day it’s my job to teach someone how to fish, not to fish for them; to lead them to water, not to drink it; and ultimately to not rob them of an opportunity for growth.
Steve Covey’s lesson of seeking first to understand. Coaching is a service done IN SERVICE to a client. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter if the client understands ME. It’s my job to do the due diligence to ask the right questions, listen intently, and then build a deep understanding of whether I have what it takes to help someone or a company as a whole achieve its goals. Me or any coach/consultant cannot truly do that if we’re not listening let alone even care to understand. Seeking first to understand is as much about me figuring out if I have to turn someone away as much as it is about confidently telling them that I can help them achieve their deepest goals. In our capitalist landscape declining to go through with a transaction because I know there’s a better solution out there for a potential client, to me, is one of the truest acts of partnership in business.
Finally, I’m a big proponent of the Strength-Based approach popularized by Donald Clifton and developed earlier by a team from the University of Kansas including Dennis Saleebey, Charles Rapp, and Ann Weick (Healy, Karen (2005). Social Work Theories in. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan). In 1999, Dr. Martin Seligman, the president of the American Psychological Association at the time, made an observation that fueled strength-based practice (Buckingham, Marcus (2007). Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance. New York: Free Press):
What do Clients Experience & What can Prospects Expect?
Clients and companies who work with me will find:
That my communication and problem solving style is collaborative, high energy, honest, and respectful.
They’ll see that I pay attention to and place high value on people’s work styles, interests, and motivations. In other words, I’m enthusiastic about doing the deep work required of truly understanding your stakeholders and decision makers as part of any personal development or organizational change initiative.
They’ll also find that I mix my positivity and creativity with a consistent attention to focusing on objective and specific ways to achieve successful end results.
Before any formal client engagement I always do free discovery calls. This goes back to my belief in first getting an understanding of a prospective client’s goals and if what’s required of achieving those goals is consistent with my areas of expertise.
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