By Mark F Herbert

"Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them" -Robert Jarvik

Robert Jarvik, surgeon and inventor of the Jarvik artificial heart made that comment about leaders, but I think it is just as relevant and applicable to the spirit of the entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurial endeavors like all careers are a journey; you really measure their success or failure at the end, not at the milestones. Like leadership, it can also be a very lonely path, so I wanted to take this opportunity to explore a concept that has held some cachet in corporate America, but has not yet seemed to take hold in small business- the concept of executive coaching.

The issue of coaching is such an interesting one, especially when you put it in the context of business.

World class athletes have coaches, why would it not be appropriate for those in the business world to avail ourselves of "coaching"? My premise here is that coaching, properly defined and applied is a competitive if not essential advantage, especially for those in the small business environment

One of the first things you need to differentiate is "executive" versus "personal" coaches. A personal coach’s role is to help you focus on life goals and ambitions, creating appropriate "balance" in your life and similar types of things. They kind of act as an external "conscience," holding you accountable to execute those things standing between you and self actualization.

An executive coach’s role is focused on helping you develop or increase skills that make you more effective in your job. I am not putting a value judgment on one or the other, or even suggesting there are not dimensions that overlap, I am just pointing out the difference. My focus in this article is on the merits of executive coaching.

The most common reasons organizations hire executive coaches is to strengthen an executive or manager’s skills in one or more of these four areas:

• Handling or managing change
• Working well within a team environment
• Interpersonal relationships
• Developing or enhancing "executive" presence (speaking ability, communications, etc).
  

You can see just in the target skills that the type of coaching has a huge role in selecting the right resource and the coaching plan.

Why Entrepreneurs Need Coaching
Whoever coined the phrase "It’s lonely at the top" must have had the entrepreneur in mind. It doesn’t get any lonelier. You are the business is many cases. You have direct reports, family, maybe even a board; but there is no "organization" to hire a coach for you if you need additional resources, or even to require or suggest you might benefit from coaching. You face the same issue as the "corporate" CEO; you just don’t typically have access to the same resources.

I have found most the successful entrepreneurs that I have worked with to have a number of characteristics in common; they are visionary, driven to the point of obsession, have a high need for control, and in business dealings may tend to be more loners. They have built the business from the ground up. They made the decisions and founded the key relationships.

Skills like delegation, collaboration, and "process management" do not come naturally to them. They will seek advice from technical advisors like accountants, attorneys, and the like, but many of the "business" skills that those of us learned in corporate America are not part of their experiential base.

I have seen them struggle with things like delegation, selection of staff, succession planning, and team or collaborative based decision making. Bluntly, many of the "technical" advisors have limited experience outside of their core competency areas. The relationship between them and their clients grows from trust and time, not always broad expertise. I find their advice tends to be biased from their area.

I will freely admit my "core competency" is in the management of people. I have designed hundreds of human resource management systems with the elements of hiring, selection, training, performance management and related skills.

As an entrepreneur and C level executive I was also required to broaden my skill set to include other functional skills like marketing, finance, sales, etc. Because of my corporate experience I am comfortable reaching out to others with technical skills in those arenas. That makes me in my experience a bit of an anomaly as an entrepreneur.

As businesses move forward and evolve you will find it is critical to do several things:

• Recognize and link your "human" processes and business results
• Develop and strengthen relationships with your "team", including succession planning for yourself and other key staff.
• Be able to clearly articulate your personal mission and vision, especially as the business grows and becomes less "personal".
• Create feedback opportunities for your staff to discuss with you both their needs and your "opportunities for development."
• Delegate portions of your responsibilities to allow you to move to the "30,000" foot level and focus on the long term success of your business not the day to day.

Annika Sorestram, Tiger Woods, Venus Williams; besides being world class athletes, what do they all have in common? They all have a coach.

I also believe that in smaller or closely held businesses some of the issues targeted by executive coaches are even more critical. In the small organization every hire is a key hire, every decision is a key decision. A significant erroneous business decision doesn’t mean I don’t get my "bonus" it means I might lose my life savings and my home. I have found from personal experience the "golden parachute" I have from my business seems a little more like it was constructed from that liner in chewing gum wrappers.

Another interesting note for those of you that like statistics-

• A return on investment study from Fortune 1000 companies showed an average of a 600% return on the dollars they invested in executive coaching. They saw specific improvements in productivity, quality, organizational strength, and customer satisfaction.
• Another study showed a 529% ROI directly attributable to coaching and other intangible benefits. When they included the savings from decreased turnover the number was 788%.

I don’t know about you, but those are the kind of numbers that get my attention, and my bankers, and my accountants!

So in conclusion I think the case for "executive" coaching is pretty clear, the issue is hiring the right coach.

I won’t presume to tell you who the "right" coach is for you, but I will give you these tips.

First, two effective questions to ask prospective coaches:

1. What kinds of clients do you work with particularly effectively?
2. What kinds of clients do you not work with effectively?

The second tip I have for you, with apologies to the various entities out there that are "certifying" coaches, is what I and others believe are essential competencies in an effective executive coach. These include:

• They must be competent at coaching and influencing others. They must be self aware, empathetic, excellent listeners, and have the ability and willingness to give candid, balanced feedback in a nonjudgmental or confrontational way.
• They have to be trustworthy. You will need to be able to trust them with intimate, sensitive information about your business.
• They have to have at least a baseline understanding of your business and business in general. A coach with no experience in business practices, organizational "dynamics" and other areas won’t do you much good.
• They must have the integrity and strength of character to stand up to you, even if it means losing your business.

Mark F. Herbert is a principal in the consulting firm of New Paradigms LLC. He has over 30 years of experience as a corporate executive and consultant specializing in optimizing organizational performance. He speaks and writes frequently on topics related to human resources management, organizational development, and executive and managerial coaching. He has developed and implemented a management system called Compliance to Commitment ™ that has seen significant measurable results in multiple organizational settings. His first book, Managing Whole People will be published in the fall of 2008. He can be reached at mark@newparadigmsllc.com or www.newparadigmsllc.com