RUNNING HEAD: Insights from two coaches

Insights From Two Coaches Valarie A. Udeh ODEV 640 Queens University of Charlotte

Insights from two coaches No two people think alike but many share similar perspectives. This appears to hold true for professional coaches. I had the pleasure of interviewing Ginny Victory, a business coach with more than twenty years of professional experience who combines business and personal coaching to help women entrepreneurs start and build their businesses. In addition, I interviewed Paulette Ashlin, an executive coach with twenty years of professional experience, who has a private practice grounded in behaviorism. These two coaches echoed each other on many facets of the profession yet approached their work from varying experiences and methodologies. From these two conversations, I learned what is fundamentally required to be an effective coach, how personal motivators influence how a coach approaches his or her work, and what is required to build a successful practice. Coaching is often an outcome of a professional journey that involved formal and informal handson coaching experiences and training versus a deliberate decision made at the start ones career. Workplace experiences grounded in training, organizational development, and human resources provide a strong foundation for coaching. Ginny is an accountant and at the start of her career quickly migrated from auditing to recruiting and conducting new hire orientation for her firm. A new job at Herman Miller allowed her to take advantage of internal coaching training and the creation of an internal coaching department to further honed her skills. Paulettes path started with jobs in human resources for Duke Energy that included coaching. A successful career at Duke Energy led Paulette to a Managing Director position with Lee, Hecht, Harrison where she had responsibility for the firms coaching practice among other duties. Both Ginny and Paulette are now in private practice. Early professional coaching experience, of course, is helpful, but being an effective coach requires a number of natural attributes. Paulette and Ginny both underscored the ability to be a good listener. Paulettes list of attributes included being a bit of an introvert, someone who does not seek the limelight, enjoys being in the wings, and is not driven by his or her ego. As Paulette said, You need to have a low ego. She reiterated that a coachs job is to focus on the client not on him or herself. Ginnys list was similar yet slightly different. She also mentioned the need to keep ones ego in check. Ginny described this as self-management or the ability to stay detached in order to allow what resonates with the 2

Insights from two coaches client to take the lead versus what may resonate with you as the coach. Intuition, getting out of your head and into your gut, is also critical to be an effective coach. In addition, natural wisdom, interpersonal skills, and true interest in people are equally important. In sum, these attributes help to create a safe environment for clients to address and resolve their issues. In my opinion, being an effective coach requires a high level of self-awareness understanding what you naturally possess is important. Are you a good listener? Can you put others first? Are you genuinely motivated to help others be their best? Are you able to trust your gut or follow your intuition? From my conversations with Ginny and Paulette, they were not always aware of their own natural skills. Feedback from peers and clients helped them realize the profound impact they were having on those they coached. Beyond personal skills, both coaches, who are certified by the International Coach Federation, acknowledged the importance of process and methodologies. Paulette has undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in psychology and industrial psychology. She is a behaviorist and her coaching approach is driven by behavior modification. As she states, Introspection is irrelevant if it does not change behavior. Paulettes goal is to make the client better for his or her benefit and for the benefit of the organization. Ginny leveraged her accounting degree to establish a practice as a business and personal coach with a specific niche, women entrepreneurs. She is focused on a right brain-left brain approach to coaching. According to Ginny, magic happens for the client when he or she knows when to engage in right brain thinking the creative and innovative self and when to engage the left brain the more structured and logical self. Understanding right brain-left brain integration helps clients create unique structures that free them to move in more interesting directions. As our class learns a range of coaching theories to integrate into our own coaching approach, I found it interesting that Paulettes approach was firmly rooted in behaviorism and she did not necessarily weave other approaches into her work. She shared there is nothing she has not seen before and relies on these previous experiences to help shape her coaching approach. Ginnys focus on right brain-left brain 3

Insights from two coaches approach was mixed with a range of coaching models learned through her certification process. However, Ginny uses her intuition strengthened by years of experience to help her clients reach their personal and business goals. As Ginny shared, Trust your wiring. What is your gut telling you? I just caught a flash of [something] . The combination of theory and instinct led me to the question, is coaching art grounded in science or just the opposite, science grounded in art? Paulette compared coaching to a doctors academic medical training and then required residency. You have to have seen it before you can diagnose the issue and offer a prescription. Ginny views coaching as art and felt a too clinical approach would diminish the experience and the outcome for the client. Being fully presence during a coaching session is the joy and the art of the discipline. Clinical components are important but the goal is not to rely too heavily on them. Although it seems that the coaches I interviewed differ in their assessment of coaching, through our conversation I realized that coaching is both art and science and the percentage of what application leads changes depending on the coach, the client and the situation. Paulette and Ginny are both in private practice. Ginny wants to be part of the global conversation about coaching, especially focused on women helping women. She is actively building her business thorough speaking engagements, holding seminars, exhibiting, blogging and through her website. She has developed trademarked coaching tools and hopes to write a book. After five years of soul searching, Paulette started interviewing coaches already in private practice before deciding to go it alone. Her business is build off a solid reputation, networking and referrals. In addition, she belongs to a number of professional organizations. Paulettes strategy is to target and be introduced to corporate decision makers. Currently, she does not actively market her practice but is now looking to hire a social media marketer. For both these coaches, having extensive corporate experience and along with coaching certification provided the foundation to go into private practice. I believe it would be nearly impossible to go into private practice without prior corporate experience. Education and certification alone would not be enough. In addition, a marketing plan built off a combination of networking, word of mouth and 4

Insights from two coaches referrals has to be in place, and with the ubiquitous nature of social media, an active social media presence is needed. Paulette is realizing that although her current clients are not avid users of social media, the rising C-suite executives she needs to reach and appeal to are. Through our class, I have found the power and continuous nature of self-coaching and asked Ginny and Paulette if they did the same. Both actually take the assessments they use for their clients for their own professional growth and development. Reading coaching books and professional journals are also part of their ongoing development. Paulette will conduct her workshops just for herself to continue to ensure she is on the right path. An interesting fact I discovered about both coaches is their commitment to their spiritual selves. I specifically asked Paulette if she thought effective coaches were spiritual. She thought that there was a true connection to a more heighten spiritual self and how clients connect and engage with a coach. She said, Good coaches are coaches people can easily relate to, and I believe they may be more spiritual than other coaches. I concluded my conversations by asking both coaches to advise me on how to make the transition into coaching . Their answers were different yet profound. Ginny said to find my soapbox. Find my message. Her message is -- I want to give you the chance to do ______ (the blank is filled in by her clients). Paulette suggested I look to my current company for informal coaching opportunities or volunteer to coach someone at a non-profit organization. Getting experience is essential. Ginny and Paulette have two distinct approaches to coaching. What they share is a love for helping people be better versions of themselves. Often colleagues and friends tell me I would make a great coach and that they feel better after talking with me. I am motivated by their encouragement but wonder how to make the transition from communicator to coach. Ginny and Paulette are inspiring, yet they have been preparing to be coaches for years. If I am to make the transition, I will need to be creative in how I gain experience, build a reputation as being an effective coach and determine how, or if, I can align my twenty plus years as a communications professional to a coaching practice. My journey has begun. I now want to take Ginnys recommendation to find my soapbox to heart.