Mr Entrepreneur , You are the competitive advantage !

I had an opportunity to participate in a session & learn from an experienced HR leader on the subject of “Training & Retention in Small & Medium Enterprises”. The audience comprised of entrepreneurs of start- ups and steady state medium sized enterprises in Hyderabad, India.


Apart from speaker, the nature of questions and information sharing amongst the entrepreneur audience was of immense value & brought new insights for me.  I share some of these and more.


Similar to any career, entrepreneurial endeavors are a journey. Entrepreneurs really measure their success or failure at the end, not at the milestones. Like corporate leadership, entrepreneurs also pursue a very lonely path. It is also akin to individual sport where you are practicing alone to be the best among the best and yet you do not know what best is your competitor preparing for. Tiger Woods, Venus Williams besides being world class athletes, what do they all have in common? They all have a coach. If world class athletes have coaches, why wouldn’t it be appropriate for those in the business world to avail of coaching?

The issue of coaching is interesting and especially valuable in the context of business. My premise is simple: coaching, properly defined and applied, is a competitive if not essential advantage, especially for those in the small & medium business environment.

The coach serves as an external “conscience,” holding the entrepreneur accountable to execute those things standing between him or her and self-actualization, realizing full potential as a person“ the focus is to help the client thrive in professional life and maximize effectiveness in the workplace.”

A coach’s role is focused on helping to develop or increase skills that make the person more effective in a given job. This includes balancing and integrating personal and professional attributes and considerations, but the focus is to help the client thrive in professional life and maximize effectiveness in the workplace (everything from internal meetings to partner negotiations).

Why Entrepreneurs Need Coaching:

Whoever coined the phrase “It’s lonely at the top” must have had the entrepreneur in mind. It doesn’t get any lonelier. Entrepreneurs, as individuals, are the business in many cases. They have direct reports, family, maybe even a board; but there is no “organization” to hire a coach if they need additional resources, or even to require or suggest benefits from coaching.

They face the same issue as the “corporate” CEO; however, the entrepreneur often doesn’t have access to the same resources. I have found most of the successful entrepreneurs that I have worked with or known to have a number of characteristics in common; they are visionary, driven to the point of obsession, have a high need for control, and in business dealings these entrepreneurs may tend to be more loners. They have built the business from the ground up, they made the decisions and founded the key relationships often alone.

Skills like delegation, collaboration, and process management don’t come naturally to entrepreneurs. I have seen them struggle with issues such as delegation, staff selection, succession planning, and team or collaborative -based decision -making. They will seek advice from technical advisers such as accountants, attorneys, but many of the business skills learned in corporate world aren’t part of an entrepreneur’s experiential base. Bluntly, many of the “technical” advisers have limited experience outside of their core competency areas.

‘It’s lonely at the top.’

As businesses move forward and evolve, an entrepreneur will find that it’s critical to do several things:

- Co-relate “human” processes and business results.


- Develop and strengthen relationships with the “team”, including succession planning for oneself and other key staff.


- Articulate personal mission and vision, especially as the business grows



- Create opportunities for staff to discuss their needs and opportunities for development

I also believe that in smaller or closely held businesses, some of the issues targeted by executive coaches are even more critical. In the small organization every hire is a key hire, every decision is a key decision. A significant erroneous business decision doesn’t mean I don’t get my “bonus,” it means I might lose my life savings and my home.

A few significant statistics support the value of coaching:

· A return –on -investment study from Fortune 1000 companies showed an average of a 600% return on the dollars they invested in executive coaching. They saw specific improvements in productivity, quality, organizational strength, and customer satisfaction.

· Another study showed a 529% ROI directly attributable to coaching and other intangible benefits.


I believe these are the kind of numbers that get anyone attention ! . Here is the business case for entrepreneurs & it also makes you feel a lot less lonelier at the top too !

Coaching the Teens !

All caring parents want their children to grow up to be happy and successful adults.

Daughters who become good, strong women.

Sons who become good, strong men.

But making this happen is a Herculean task.

There was an article recently carried in Times of India , Mumbai Edition , dated 13th Nov 13 , “Need parenting help , call a coach”. When I went through the article I was reminded of a chat with a young kid, son of my friend, few months back. I carried out this conversation, which is typically of 10-15 minutes duration, in a coaching structure. What exactly is a coaching structure? Coaching is defined as “facilitate positive change through improved thinking”. Coaching is not about giving advice or solutions but about helping the person develop insights & then bring about new thinking and actions to achieve  results.

Well, as a parent (me included) we tend to believe that our children need answers, solutions and we go about “telling” our children what to do and how to do. Parents, generally, do not engage in a dialogue to understand them, understand their thinking process. This could be for a host of reasons. Parents believe that their own experience can be useful, that the child needs to be protected, and that they are just “kids”.

Well coming back to the article in Times of India, the writer talks about how there are these times when the parents need to learn the art of coaching & derive lessons on parenting. For the interested & initiated, I am reproducing the Face Book Chat conversation that I had with a teenager (17yrs). While reading through , I would like readers to carefully notice the response of the Teenager.

Coaching Conversation

Hello Uncle, How are you?

I am good, how about you?

I am good, thank you! Just struggling with studies these days?

Could you talk more about it?

That is the question of the hour. You please give me some tips to handle this struggle?

What is the question?

That, how can I overcome this struggle?

Question is "what is the struggle" you are facing.

Not able to concentrate on studies.

Which areas of studies you would like to improve your concentration?

You mean the subjects?

Yes, the subjects and topics within subjects.

Economics and Business.

What do you want to change about the way you understand these subjects?

No, I want to improve the duration of the self-study time of these subjects. I understand the subjects very easily.

So, your struggle is time and not concentration. Good, how do you schedule your day?

Well I have made a schedule.

Wonderful, so when you follow your schedule, how does it make you feel?

It makes me feel good and in control. I feel I will be highly successful.

Great, shall we discuss further on how you can work towards it.

Yes.

Thanks, would you share how you fare on your schedule?

Yes! I am trying, trying to follow it.

What could you do to ensure that you follow your schedule 100%?

Control Phone, TV& Friends

Who can help you to control TV, Friends & Phone?

No one,except me. I have to control it myself

Great, what all you can you do to manage your schedule and time better?

I guess my schedule is okay. I have to start saying no to the little things in life now to achieve big things. So the fault lies within me

Beautiful, No fault , you have realization now.

Yes, Thanks for making me realize it

So, what actions will you take now?

Will switch off the phone will studying?

Great, what else?

You tell me?

 

In your sport, is there any learning which you can apply when you are studying in concentration?

Well my sport requires great perfection & precision. So, yes that I can apply in my day to day working.

These 2; perfection and precision. How and what do you do to achieve them?

Practice hard and sometimes meditate.

How do you ensure you adhere to practice time?

By waking up early in the morning. I wake up at 5 whenever I have to practice.

So do u think it can work for you by applying this learning here

Yes I do. Thank a lot for telling this will really help me

So what action will you take now to ensure you are concentrated on studies

So now I am going to get up at 5. At 5 there are no distractions and secondly I am going to switch off my mobile phone while studying and thirdly I going to strictly follow my time table

What else can you do to ensure strict timetable adherence

I can ask my mother to keep a check on me

Great!

Thanks a lot for your guidance

Great let me know if you want to talk about same, 10-15 days from now after implementing the action.

Sure , I will.

In this conversation as you see my role was to guide him with my questions into finding his own way towards succeeding in achieving his goal. A similar issue handled by / as a parent could have meant that the child on raising the issue would have been “told” that he should get up early & switch off mobiles.

The conversation I had with the teenager differentiates itself just by the fact that all answers and solutions came from the child. There is a high probability of his achieving the outcome, as all actions came from his own thinking after the realisation that “he could think and do it all by himself”.

The secret is that no matter how hard it might be, parents need to start all interactions with their children with understandings and patience, even if you don't fully agree or even quite comprehend what they're talking about. We also need to take the emotionality out of the equation. Emotion is an obstacle 

when you're trying to get through to your teen. Remind yourself that what he says and does is not a reflection on you.

We do not want our kids to give up and quit when they face challenges. Focus on the behavior, and don't tag them with a label. Instead it's better to ask pointed questions to bring your child to a specific solution. Don't ask loaded questions that put your teen on the defensive like, "why can't you get up on time? What's wrong with you?" Instead, opening the conversation with, "Do you have any ideas for how you might get up on time?" If he can't think of any, suggest some options and let him chose what works best for him. Let him have the confidence that you believe in him and that you are not mad at him for struggling in his life. When you let him see the faith in his abilities and he has the space to work things out on his own, you will begin to develop true confidence in him.

The trick lies in guiding them to find their own calling. With teens, I think it’s best to remind them of things they themselves have said. To a certain degree, you’re allowing them to co–author certain things.

Coaches can help parents in developing skills to have “meaningful conversations” with their children. Coaches are available to have meaningful conversations with children to resolve their dilemmas and help them through challenges in any part of their lives. 

So as a parent, I think it’s important to know what your kid’s dilemmas and goals are. There is an opportunity here for child to understand himself better. Use these situations and dilemmas, because then you can use that as a tool to motivate them.

Happy coaching your kids.