Mentoring, for a lot of Ex CEOs and CXOs is viewed as a piece of cake, natural extension of careers. Many CXOs choose a Mentoring and Coaching career fairly early. Yet how many times have these Executive Coaches and Mentors wondered and spent sleepless nights trying to find answers to that one Question “Am I adding value?”
A father once asked his Teenaged Daughter, “We seem to be living in two different worlds, we discuss many things, but I can’t relate to many; am I adding any value to these discussions we have ?” The Daughter replied “ Absolutely Dad, its because you make the effort to listen.”
The Stakeholder Knows : The above example reiterates in a simple manner “Value is always as perceived by the recipient’. What is valuable to one stakeholder may be worthless to another. That simply means Coaches must undergo a process of defining what value is what they deliver to their stakeholders and how they intend to measure it.Without complicating measurement with metrics and scorecards, a simple question asked “ Did I add value to you today ?” can deliver inputs beyond measurement. Net, Net The Stakeholder experiences value.
Small is Big : Stephen Covey in one of his leadership videos talks of the role of the Trim Tab, a small but very critical component in a ship’s rudder system that guides the direction of the mammoth ship. A coach or a mentor is possibly just that ; a small yet relevant component that helps steer. The machinery, the dynamics, The Rudder itself and the size and effort of steering a ship is the complexity the individual being coached manages and operates in.
Equip, don’t just advise : This is where the challenge in the mind of a Mentor and a coach comes in? Does he or she only guide or also share and provide expertise? More and more coaching requirements are getting specific to skills, situations, experiences, competencies. Technology, M & As, skill redundancies, investor pressures, disruptors, all drive these challenges. Somewhere that shift has also created a shift on “What Adds Value”. So the Trim Tab example fits in. Successful coaching is just not about sharing, or listening, its also about equipping. The naysayers will say an executive coach can give guidance, yet I feel its also about providing direction, and testing out where the ship is headed now, steered by the Mentee.
So is the Ex CEO or CXO better at coaching? There are success stories from all formats of coaching. My experience shows Ex CEOs and CXOs tend to analyse the business scenario and challenge around the Mentee faster, help assimilate the bigger picture better and potential solutions, if there are industry relevance too, are sharper. What gets done gets experienced, and hence the “Added Value” measure enhances for a CXO turned Executive Coach.
– Sandeep Bidani
All opinions are personal and do not represent the views of organisation/organisations I work for or have worked with.
Follow me on twitter @Sbidani
The author has over 25 years of extensive experience in CHRO roles in multinational companies in the BFSI, IT and ITES sectors, including Amex, KPMG & IBM with Extensive Shared Services Experience across multiple geographies. He has cross-cultural experience as a CHRO and a Management Consultant , having lived and worked across India and the Middle East, managing projects in India, Middle East, Philippines and UK. He was recently named amongst the Top 100 HR Influencers in India on Twitter,with views on leadership diversity & work environments widely published on social media.