Coaching with Dr. Marshall Goldsmith

I recently attended a 2 day workshop on executive coaching at Indian School of Business ( ISB ) , Hyderabad with Dr Marshall Goldsmith , International renowned Executive Coach and author of many books including the Best Seller " What brought you here won't get you there". He said, while handing over an autographed copy of this book, that while this is best seller and was among top10 selling books in US , another book which sold more than his, was a diet book. He was quite easy with that. But the bigger point he made was , that only if we could all get thinner by buying & reading diet books, US would have the most thinnest people in the world . But the reality is different.

We all know what is good , but we dont go out and do that good.Those who do..go and make life for themselves and impact lives of others too ..

I had planned to attend his workshop to learn and hone my skills as an executive coach. But Marshall Goldsmith had something else in mind too. A buddhist , I could make out , is out there sharing his wisdom and learnings much beyond executive coaching.

I am not going into details of his effective coaching methodology and his success around the world with CEOs of Multi Billion dollar corporations acknowledging his contribution. Perhaps a google search with his name would tell you more than I can in this blog . So go and read if you are interested. I am here to share that I have learned some things that I did not go there for. I am thankful to him for that. I always knew that I have to learn a lot , apart from other things , to be a executive coach in behavioral areas. What I learnt though is that I need to be a better person and human being first. Please don't miss my " better". I am a good person and human being. I need to be better though. In so many ways.

Dr Marshall Goldsmith reminded us. He shared a story of our very own Mahatma Gandhi. A lady came to him and requested him to persuade her son to leave sugar. Gandhiji asked them to come back after 6 months. Six months later the women asked him the reasons for asking them to wait for this time. He said I wanted to leave sugar myself before advising others to do it.

I guess Dr. Marshall Goldsmith was asking us, goading us , persuading us to be better person,before we go out and start coaching others. Other participants in the program may not agree with me, but so what. I dont care. I got my message. I am going to work on it.

In fact I have begun. I needed to start and sustain the learnings.I feel nice about it. Take a deep breath. My co participants will understand. Thank you Marshall. Thank you all.

Before I sign off , I will be back with more on what I have done .My next blog.