Sir Alex Ferguson. Coach Extraordinaire...

Some call him the greatest coach in history. Before retiring in May 2013, Sir Alex Ferguson spent 26 seasons as the manager of Manchester United, the English football (soccer) club that ranks among the most successful and valuable franchises in sports. During that time the club won 13 English league titles along with 25 other domestic and international trophies—giving him an overall haul nearly double that of the next-most-successful English club manager. And Ferguson was far more than a coach. He played a central role in the United organization, managing not just the first team but the entire club. “Steve Jobs was Apple; Sir Alex Ferguson is Manchester United,” says the club’s former chief executive David Gill. In 2012 Harvard Business School professor Anita Elberse had a unique opportunity to examine Ferguson’s management approach and developed an HBS case study around it. Now she and Ferguson have collaborated on an analysis of his enormously successful methods.


Alex Ferguson was known as one of the most challenging and uncompromising coaches, and this approach led to huge success. The 8 lessons identified in the HBR are very interesting and quite apt... :

1. Start with the foundation. Centres of excellence were created for promising young players. Sir Alex said “The job of a manager … is to inspire people to be better.” Probably the only EPL manager who tried this seriously.

2. Dare to rebuild your team. Sir Alex constantly looked to rebuild the team and said “… we tried to visualise the three or four years ahead…”

3. Set high standards, and hold everyone accountable to them. Sir Alex demanded his players worked extremely hard, and never be satisfied. He is famous for letting stars go for not giving it their all.

4. Never, ever cede control. Ferguson responded quickly and forcefully, maintaining control, e.g. sacking or selling star players if they became a negative influence. He said “It doesn’t matter if the person is the best player in the world. The long-term view of the club is more important than the individual.” Hmmm...

5. Match the message to the moment – tailor your words to the moment. Ferguson varied his approach saying “You can’t always come in shouting and screaming. That doesn’t work.” On feedback Ferguson says “Few people get better with criticism; most respond to encouragement.”

6. Prepare to win through regular practice and repetition of skills. Sir Alex said “If we were down – say 1-2 – with 15 minutes to go, I was ready to take more risks.”

7. Rely on the power of observation. My favourite one, and resonates in our coaching practice as well. Over time Ferguson switched from hands on coaching to observing. “What you pick up by watching is incredibly valuable.” 

8. Never stop adapting, Ferguson said “I believe you control change by accepting it … The most important thing is to not stagnate”.

Hindu Business Line: Games Executive Coaches Play

Good article, on the "games" some coaches play. And like the typical "game" in TA, the play is often unconscious and repetitive. It is critical for Coaches to recognise and work towards overcoming the same...

By C.Mahalingam

Executive coaching has caught up big time in India. There is a realisation that leadership talent is in short supply and that playing a ‘buy’ strategy has serious limitations. The focus, therefore, has shifted to a ‘build’ strategy where organisations are investing in setting up leadership academies for grooming a cadre of internal leadership bench. Senior leaders are called upon to invest their time at these academies sharing their “teachable points of view” to the high potential internal candidates so that they can be prepared for higher responsibilities. Leadership competency frameworks are leveraged to focus the development and assessment/development centres are used to do the assessment that forms the basis for fast-track development.

It is now fairly well-established that people development follows a certain pattern. No more than 10 per cent of development is attributed to class-room training. Almost 70 per cent of learning happens through mentoring on the job or other work-related assignments. This leaves us with 20 per cent of development that happens through relationship-based strategies, such as mentoring and coaching. It is in this context that coaching has assumed importance in organisations. A few organisations have the foresight to build coaching competence internally as they have clear expectations from their managers that they double up as coaches. Managers as coaches are very powerful but managers need systematic training and role-plays before they can shift gears between the roles of a manager and a coach.

THE TWO SIDES

Senior managers who are being groomed for higher responsibilities are given the benefit of external executive coaches, who reach a clear understanding with the sponsoring organisation and the executive to be coached on the developmental need and focus their coaching around the same. Usually coaching contracts for such purposes are for six months and sometimes longer. They key success factors for such intervention to work would be (a) clear understanding of the developmental need; and (b) if the need so identified is something that coaching can address. The overarching success factor is the right choice of the executive coach.

Over the last two years, we have seen a dozen or more executive coaching certification/credentialing organisations that have come up in India to fill the gap in helping create a competent cadre of trained executive coaches. Their efforts are laudable. However, a caveat would be in order at this juncture. Not only in India, but even globally, it is both interesting and worrying to stomach the fact that these institutes have rarely ever failed any candidate, who has enrolled for the program. In other words, anyone who enrols rolls out as successful! This leaves the onus completely on the corporate house to discern the “men from the boys.” Executive coaching is an expensive developmental intervention not just in terms of coaching fees, but the opportunity cost of six months of time being spent by the coachee.

The author, himself an executive coach, has been a keen observer of what is going on in this wonder world of executive coaching. Borne out of this observation and conversation with corporate houses is this discovery that if not done carefully, executive coaching can turn out to be frustrating for the coachee and an investment wasted for the sponsoring organisation. Coaching is a craft and not just an art and science. Great coaches are trained, get their unique value from rich experience and keep the coachee’s interest uppermost in their mind. While training provides them with useful frameworks and dos and don’ts of coaching, effective coaches bring value through their intelligent and practical approach to helping the coachee overcome their challenges.

GAMES PLAYED

Like with any growing profession, coaching has its challenges. The biggest challenge is when coaches play games without realising they do. This arises out of lack of strong fundamentals in coaching. With credentials as a license, they unleash these games on the unsuspecting coachees. I have captured many such interesting “games that coaches may play” and how organisations can guard against such possibilities by carefully screening potential coaches and by periodical review once a coach has been signed up.

Traffic cop: This game emanates from the psychological disposition of the coach that “I’m only trying to help.” The manifestation of this game is through generous suggestions to try this or try that from the coach drawing upon either their experience or extensive ‘Googling’ on the net. Professional coaching is anything but prescriptive, although an occasional tip in the form of “have you thought about this possibility” is permissible to break a situation of “impasse” or “no noticeable progress.”

Psychiatrick: Coaches are not psychiatric professionals. And there may be occasions when the coach recognises (hopefully) that the coachee may need professional help from qualified counsellors or psychiatrists. Ideally, this is recognised right at the beginning of the “getting to know” discussions and professional coaches stay out of a coaching contract once they recognise the need for a referral to a professional help. This game plays out when the coach assumes the role of a psychiatrist and begins to “treat the coachee” with his “techniques”. This causes more damage than good.

Cheery-blossom: This game is all about the coach believing and communicating to the coachee that everything is “bright and shiny.” A coaching contract has been entered into because the sponsor believes that the coachee needs help. Positive reinforcements are needed from time to time but based on progress made. Half-baked coaches take to this game just to create a sense of “feel-good” so that the coachee may report positive impact of coaching to the sponsor. Eventually, this leads to frustration for the coachee, who reports to the sponsor what the coach least wanted — that the coaching was a waste!

War hero: When coaching conversations drift from the a meaningful course and move into the coach reeling out how they solved the problem of Mr X or Ms Y and this happens meeting after meeting, this game is in full play. War stories are shared, which are of interest initially, but become a burden for the coachee eventually as the coachees are interested in their challenge being addressed and not stories of how coaches solved the world’s miseries!

Forbes: 5 Things To Look For When Choosing An Executive Coach

Forbes came up out recently with a timely article on 5 Things To Look For When Choosing An Executive Coach. For us, this has been a key question we have answered often, and well. Happy that we can tick off all five check-boxes!

by Erika Andersen

Over the past week, four different colleagues sent me a link to the same Stanford study about executive coaching – and two other people mentioned it to me as well.  Boiled down, the study shows that not many CEOs are being coached, and that most would like to have that opportunity.

It makes complete sense that people would have sent this to me: High-level executive coaching is one of our core offers at Proteus, and I’ve been a leadership coach for many years.  Interestingly, though, this has never happened before – people very occasionally send me links to articles or posts about coaching, but having a bunch of people mention/direct me to a particular resource: brand new.

I think this flurry of referring happened partly because this study is a particularly compelling and well-researched chunk of information, and the Stanford name adds cachet.  I also believe people sent it to me because they felt we could use it to market the value of coaching (which we can).

But I think it’s mostly because this study demonstrates that executive coaching has finally become legitimate.  Stanford is doing studies on it: CEOs want it. My colleagues find it exciting to have data showing that so many executives recognize the benefits of and want the opportunity to engage with a coach.

For those of us who are practitioners, and who believe in the (potential) efficacy of coaching, it’s an important and long-awaited moment. Just to provide some context, here’s my quick and dirty summary of the evolution of executive coaching in the US over the past 25 years:

• Late 1980s: “A coach? What’s a coach?”

• Early 1990s: “A coach? You mean, like…a corporate shrink?”

• Mid-to-late 1990s: “A coach? Am I in trouble?”

• Early 2000s: “A coach? Thanks – I think. ”

• Mid-to-late 2000s: “A coach? Great!”

• Now: “A coach? How long can I work with him/her – and do I get to choose the one I want?”

In other words, the good new is that most corporate executives now see coaching as an investment their organization is making in their success, and are even beginning to become informed consumers. The bad news is that, as with anything that gets popular, there are now many many people jumping on the coaching bandwagon, hanging out their shingle and offering themselves as executive coaches.

It’s really the wild wild West.  Anyone can claim to be a coach.  Just a few weeks ago, a client of mind told me that her HR had person recommended a ‘coach’ for one of their executives, someone who said he’d been doing “executive development” for over a decade.  I actually knew the guy: he had been an HR generalist – a good one – and had certainly counseled employees informally on many occasions.  A qualified executive coach?  I think not.

So, since there aren’t really any universally agreed-upon standards for executive coaching at this point, how do you know what “good” looks like?  If you’re fortunate enough to be offered the opportunity to work with a coach, here are 5 qualities to look for that will help to assure it’s a great investment..rather than a huge waste of time and money:

Clarity about the process: Really skilled coaches will be able to walk you through their process.  That process should include helping you define your core challenges, see where you’re starting from, and where you want to go.  It’s also essential that they can describe how you’ll learn new skills and behaviors, and how they’ll support you to transfer those skills back to work. If the coach is evasive, telling you that it’s “hard to quantify” or “up to you,” or if he or she is all enthusiasm and no practicality (“people love it!”  “It’s life-changing!”  It will galvanize you to be your best!”), it’s a good bet there will be no there there.

More than your point of view:  A good coach will tell you that his or her approach includes gathering feedback about you from those who work with you most and ‘patterning’ that feedback to draw a clear picture of how you’re seen by them, and then working with you to decide the areas where the two of you can have the greatest positive impact on how you’re viewed, your capabilities and your success.  If the coach doesn’t include feedback from those around you, that’s a problem; we all have blind spots, and it’s important for you and the coach to get a sense of how others see you and interact with you.

Real skills: If a coach, when asked how he or she will help you, says, “I’m a sounding board,” or “we can talk through the things that keep you up at night,” or “I’m the person who’s on your side,” odds are that you could have some interesting and/or moderately useful conversations with this person – but he or she won’t do much to help you grow. Great coaches will let you know that they can offer you useful new skills, awareness and knowledge, and help you integrate what you’ve learned into your day-to-day life.  They will be able to describe very specifically how they have worked with others to improve their leadership, management, and or business operating capabilities.

Confidentiality: This is huge.  I recently spoke with an executive who started working with a coach provided by her organization – and later found out that person was sharing everything that happened during her coaching sessions with her boss and the head of HR.  Good coaches make very clear agreements about confidentiality upfront with their coachees, and they keep those agreements.  If a coach is at all evasive or unclear about what’s being shared and what’s held in confidence, or if you find out that he or she has shared confidential information – please end the engagement.  Working with this person could materially damage your career. 

Actual success: Effective coaching enables clients to be better at their jobs, and to create the future they want for themselves.  Good coaches help their clients get clearer about how they can best contribute to their organization’s success, and then to achieve better results and become more highly promotable (if that’s what they want). If a coach can’t point to actual coachees who have improved in demonstrable ways as a result of being coached….why are you thinking about working with them?

Having an executive coach can be enormously helpful.  A good coach can help you see yourself more accurately; get clear about how to best play to your strengths; and grow in the highest leverage and most feasible ways.  He or she will be illuminating, strengthening and trustworthy.  Make the choice carefully and you’ll benefit for years to come.

For more information on our Executive Coaching practice, contact us! info@thepaintedsky.com