For nearly 28 years I’ve been an independent executive and career coach; quite frankly, I believe I’ve gotten pretty good at it. But that’s nowhere near enough because if you’re doing anything for the long haul, you’ve got to believe that you can – and should – improve every day, that you’ll be better today than yesterday, and that this will go for tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. If you’re good at what you do, you believe likewise.
But how do we ensure continuous improvement? The way I see it, two ways: (1) purposefully, planned, and by design, and (2) accidentally, coincidentally, and spontaneously. In other words, we can engage in all the forethought we want – and we should – but sooner or later, along will come an unexpected Aha! moment. Or as Louis Pasteur repeatedly emphasized: Work at excellence, look for luck. “Chance favors the prepared mind,” he assured us.
So it was for me with my coaching. When Covid hit in February 2020, I had been a coach for 23 years. One of my hallmarks was that I did it all in person, face-to-face. The personal touch, I insisted, was the only way to go. Boy, did I learn otherwise in a hurry! Were it not for virtuality, I would not have survived, plain and simple. But that didn’t make me better; it just kept me in business, just as it did with you and millions of others. Here’s how virtuality made me better.
Planning
By setting up for a virtual call – lighting, positioning, background, and scheduling– I became more aware than ever of the need for crisp readiness in the form of good questions in logical order (with, of course, always room for spontaneity). In essence I became a better interviewer, to boot, through better planning.
Focus
When my exposure to you is reduced to a PC screen or, even worse, a phone, it becomes more of a challenge to focus through all the ambient distractions in the room. There’s no choice, though, so we either expend the effort to focus or we fail.
Listening Skills
I always considered myself a good listener because I worked at it. In fact, at Fairleigh Dickinson University, I included a unit on listening classes – one of the six communications skills – in my graduate-level leadership and communication. One of the main points is that good listeners listen not only with their ears but with their eyes. (Think about that; you’ll get it.) Among other things, er covered the difference between listening and hearing, and between active and passive listening. All of that comes into play – in spades – when you’re virtual. I know that this healthy diet of virtual coaching improved my listening skills.
Unintended Benefits
This heightened sensitivity led to the birth of a smart idea: a new kind of mid- to long-term coaching arrangement for these times of unprecedented change. The results I’ve gotten with7 0 clients tell me so. We’re all familiar with the phenomenon of unintended consequences. Well, in this case, we have the emergence of unintended benefits – exactly what Louis Pasteur was saying.