5 benefits of a coach to Business

Recently came across a message quoting some research that 50% of businesses which work with a mentor/ coach survive 5 years longer than those that don’t. Coupled with this data, is also a data which suggests that most businesses start-ups die within 2 years of operation.

What is probably the reason which allows new businesses to grow ,& prosper & sustain ?

In my view the success of business begins with Business education of the entrepreneur/founder. It goes beyond the textbook theories and move in to the realms of challenges and opportunities as they unfold while they plan the path and trajectory of the enterprise.

This view is validated by what is being attempted in Hyderabad (India) – called the start-up capital of India. by Founders institute (FI), Hyderabad chapter. The FI program assignments put the founders in challenging situations with all the business assignments and pressure to complete it in one week. The assignments helps to focus on the startup idea and accelerate the growth from an idea stage into a validated company in just 4 months time and teaches key practical aspects of building a successful business. I recommend that you go to the Founder Institute website at www.fi.co and read more.

Here I would like to quote from my friend Mr Diyanat Ali Blog. He is the first of the 4 graduates of FI program out of 26 who enrolled. He says “At the Institute I learnt why a company road map is crucial, how and when to approach investors and partners, how to hire and fire people, How to develop sales traction and Outreach. This is not an inclusive list and I could talk about hours about all the great advantages the Institute gives to the founders.” He further says “Another important lesson was to realize that working with good and talented people can only make your company successful in the long run. So make sure to hire the right people because Good Employees are expensive, Average Employees are very expensive and nobody can afford bad employees. The biggest lesson for me was to witness the difference between having a viable idea and making a successful company.  Execution is much more important than just a viable idea and the FI curriculum helps one focus on the execution”.

Many entrepreneurs may not have access to such a program. Some others may think that they do not need such a program as either they or their business could do well without. Realistically such programs as conceived currently are more oriented towards IT / ITES start-ups.  So, most businessmen / entrepreneurs, in other sectors tend to gravitate towards people who have done similar businesses & can perhaps guide & mentor them. Trade bodies & associations create programs and conduct trainings to help entrepreneurs of their respective sectors too. They do help but perhaps not as holistically as they should to help entrepreneurs succeed. I must state here that even mentoring is a specific discipline and requires the mentors to be trained and qualified to be effective.

Of late, there is a growing knowledge of the term business coach. Not many years back, very few people were familiar with the term or exactly what they did. Terms such as business advisors and business consultants were heard more often. Even though these terms are often put in the same category as coaching, they are not the same. When you think of a coach generally a sports coach comes to mind. There is soccer, football, softball, baseball, basketball, to name a few. Professional sports people are very familiar with the benefits of coaching.

What are some benefits of hiring a coach?

1.     Coaches through encouragement and accountability get their players or clients to work harder for peak performance. Entrepreneurs are lonely & therefore a coach works with them to provide that safe environment.

2.     Coaches enhance performance through more effective methods or skills they learned or figured out for themselves.

3.     Coaches offer realistic assessment of where you are and how to improve. Coaches are not judgmental. They are also aware & respect that you know your business & hence provide a sounding board & different perspectives when you are challenged to think out of box, differently.

4.     Coaches help to identify personal strengths and weaknesses and help you focus on what you do best. My experience suggests that over a period our beliefs & assumptions start holding us back. Coaches help you, challenge you when they sense it and help change thinking and behaviors towards a new constructive and winning belief.

5.     Coaches help you brainstorm for ideas for needed changes and help you plan how to make the change. Coaches are sounding boards. Use them well for getting perspectives & you certainly will have a better view of the situation.

The coach works with just one goal; to help you reach the greatest potential in the area of focus. The most successful people today either have had a coach or a mentor in their life. Having someone to guide in the direction of your goals and give guidance is one of the greatest decisions a person can take for self-improvement & success.

Coaches work with clients, respect his knowledge and facilitate positive changes though improved thinking. The positive changes are brought about by the transformational journey taken to reach the goals – business, life, personal.


Most coaches offer a free introductory session to help people understand coaching, the process & the way it works. Take advantage of the offer and seize the opportunity to see if you are ready to be coached to reaching your ultimate goals of success.

Three Basics an Entrepreneur must not forget .

There may be very many areas that an entrepreneur must be good at. However in my stint as a coach with entrepreneurs & business people , I have noticed that there are few areas where the successful one certainly do better than those which are not as much successful. So what are those areas ?

In my opinion, there are three areas & these can be called basics, which an entrepreneur must be aware of and work consciously building them in to his way of doing business.

1. Successful entrepreneurs understand that making money and profits are functions of business. They focus instead on identifying the purpose of business. Essentially they create a vision for their business organization. One entrepreneur whom I am coaching, after almost a year of assignment signed me again recently. This time while creating goals, he defined his vision as “Creating 100 entrepreneurs”. Research has shown that people work with you and stay with you longer when they know your purpose and buy into it. Imagine the motivation of the person who works with my client when he realizes that his principal / employer is interested in his success.

Perhaps entrepreneurs need to answer the question “What is the core purpose of my business?” Each Entrepreneur who grows and achieves success has clearly a defined purpose and if one has not achieved desired level and quality of success, perhaps need to ponder on whether the purpose was defined well, shared & lived.

2. Entrepreneurs need to answer a question “How much salary will you pay to a person who does the role I am doing in my business”. If the answer suggests an amount which is lower than what you earn and take home, there are very high chances that you are an employee in your own business. You have a “job in your business”.

Successful entrepreneurs by any standards are always working on their business and not in their business. Working on the business allows the entrepreneur to start building new businesses too.

3. Entrepreneurs are always busy. They are chasing things all the time. They are making things happen. Let us face it there is always the issue of work life balance an entrepreneur is challenged with. The defined purpose of business and working on business is the key to achieve a work life balance for an entrepreneur. In one of my coaching session on “time mastery “with a Founder/Entrepreneur, I asked “what is value of one hour in rupee terms”. He thought, calculated and stated a magnanimous amount.

Then I asked him “What all do you do in a day which fetches a value substantially lower than the amount you mentioned”. He smiled and understood but what he said later was interesting. He shared that by stopping doing those activities, he could easily save 2 hours each day. This time could either be put to “working on business” or pursuing some interests like walking in mornings, reading and learning to play musical instruments.

This client did few simple things; Hired a secretary – This saved him tons of time as the secretary would screen and redirect unconnected calls to other employees, saved him time in managing logistics of travel.

Peter Drucker says “We all tell leaders to start doing new things of things differently but we never tell them to stop doing certain things”

Please write down 10 things that you will either stop doing completely and / or delegate to others. The trick is to understand value creation out of your time and if it does not it must be stopped or at best delegated. These things will help you save at least 1-2 hours each day, could be more. Imagine value of this time. Go out now and do what you wish to do but never got down to doing it.

Remember when things go wrong, it is said, go back to basics. Ironically basics are what we forget easily and soon.

So let us begin with writing down the purpose of your business.

How would rate your satisfaction with this session?

At the end of session, when I seek feedback as a coach, I request for feedback with the question, how would you rate your satisfaction with this session on a scale of 1 to 10?

The client said 11. The rating said it all but client went ahead and said “I wanted to postpone the session as I felt that I have not accomplished actions that I had agreed to do & wanted more time. But then I thought of not postponing it & that decision was one of my best in last week”.

Client generally looks forward to sessions with their coaches for a host of reasons. Coaches are sounding board, confidantes trusted fully by clients to share their innermost fears without the risk of being judged. Clients feel surprised on being appreciated and acknowledged for seemingly perceived negatives. It encourages them to deep dive and share as they do not fear ridicule instead expect good listening, empathy & facilitation. The journey of coaching is transformational in many ways. Having recognized own beliefs and assumptions , understanding own values and behaviors in various coaching conversations leave a lasting impact & therefore enrich the client in a life changing way.

What have been your new insights in today’s session?  

Another question which made the client reflects & say “I realized I need to be challenged more. Today I felt every uncomfortable with the initial questions, almost challenged. It slowly dawned on me while reflecting and responding that these difficult questions only would make me think, act & stay focused. Now I am confident & clear”.

Coach facilitates new thinking in their clients around the challenges and concerns that they may have. Facilitating positive change through improved thinking is perhaps the definition of coaching & coaches could adapt various styles based on client’s preferences & style ranging from collaborative to challenging.

It is not just for above two examples of questions and client’s responses that the coaching is considered valuable by those who experience it. The experience transforms most; their thinking and they become more successful than what they were before the coaching.

How do you rate this blog on a scale of 1-10 in terms of giving a glimpse and idea of what coaches do & what coaching can do?

If your response is less than 7, please drop in a line to share what would you like to know more or specifically about. You may write here or send me a mail at deepak.sawhney1@hotmail.com . 

Thank you for the feedback.

Leaders are like Ducks!

 What is common, yet unique, among Jack Welch, Sachin Tendulkar & Google’s Schmidt?

They all are very successful

They are role models for their people and generation

They are inspirational

& you can add many more here

The one that is not likely to be added or noted is that they all have had “Coaches”

What?

Yes, they have engaged coaches.

Why would they do that?

The probability of leaders to reflect and see what behavioral changes needs to be improved upon, is not very high. Their success is measured by results & outcomes. There is no measurement of what could have been achieved by them with changes to their behaviors at work. You can’t fault them; they have been a success for so long that they start believing they have the mantra and recipe.

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith in his iconic book “What got you here won’t get you there” shares twenty one habits that could hold you back from reaching the successes that you ought to. If I were to share that “Goal Orientation” behaviors could be stopping the leaders from achieving higher successes, lot of eye brows would be raised.

To be successful leaders go out & seek feedback on their behaviors. They then go out and work diligently on building new behaviors which they believe will propel the team and organization to different levels. We all know that it is quite challenging to change behaviors, not until you have feedback. So when was the last time, one has identified a behavior, which is limiting the impact or results. Even if identified how many have gone ahead and successfully changed or improved that behavior.

Feedback is just the beginning, one also needs support to break out of those habits and acquire new. This phase is daunting & challenging.  Well in case of sportsmen, beginners to icons, they have coaches till they retire. So when they face challenges at their game, they go to their coaches who work with them. The coach then observes his player in practice sessions, helping bring the desired changes. The player then moves back to playing more confident of his abilities.

When we see a MS Dhoni, a Roger Federer or Messi playing like a true artist, we do not get to know & see the time spent in practicing just to be able to stay at the top of their game. These sportsmen are akin to Ducks, a smooth performance on ground while under that cool demeanor on ground they have worked hard in practice & net sessions.

Akin to the sportsmen are leaders who need support to stay at the top of their games, consistently. They are working furiously under, like a duck, maintaining a cool and easy demeanor on top. Well interestingly some of the iconic leaders have had a coach in their professional life. In the book Dr. Marshall Goldsmith shares stories of his coaching MD, CEOs of Multi- Billion Dollar global enterprises. These leaders have worked hard on themselves, seeking help from coaches , have led admirably & attained newer heights of success for their organization, yet very few knew that they have had the support from a coach.

So the next time you are inspired & motivated meeting a leader, do ask him “Are you a duck”. If he does not understand, smile and explain. You would see him smiling back.

Thinking of moving on from the corporate world? 10 questions that helped me see clearly

My friends & ex colleagues from corporate world very often talk to me, candidly, their wish to get out of a 10-5 routine and do what their heart desires. Having observed me for close to a year operating independently in the domain of executive & business coaching, the questions are about when I thought about it & how I went about it?.  I do share honestly all of it. It seems to build their confidence. I am however cautious enough to add that each of us who change their career direction have to think through their transition and journey. Each individual is unique and so is their thinking.

At the end of the day, each one of us takes our decisions based on our goals & current situation. It is therefore imperative that we focus on these two and ask ourselves the questions. My ten questions would be:

1.     What would I love doing (goals) if I do not wish to continue a job in the corporate world?

2.     What are my key requirements and desires that I want fulfilled by being independent?

3.     What is so special and unique about these requirements that it can only be fulfilled by being independent?

4.     What more do I need to acquire (knowledge & skills) to do that successfully?

5.     Who all would be helpful & supportive to my plans & thereafter?

6.     Which stakeholders will be impacted by my decision and what would be their needs that I must take care of?

7.     How can I address the needs of my stakeholders (Parents, Kids, Spouse) in the transition phase?

8.     What actions I need to take, to be successful in my new career? Am I committed and comfortable doing those?

9.     What are my financial obligations that I need to manager now & later (within next 2 years of change)?

10.            What would I miss out on, if I do not make a career change now?

There could be questions, different and more, which people who have changed career could tell you. It is my view that answers to these 10 questions would make you reflect hard and take a better decision. My experience having gone through this phase and also coaching people have helped me frame them. I have helped a client make this decision & transition, successfully. Another friend decided against changing career as some of these questions helped him think more clearly.

I was compelled to write this blog as few days back a close friend and ex colleague met me and shared that he seems to be at the brink of taking a decision to quit. I sensed from his statements that he may be missing out on some pieces (after all I am a coach J ). So I asked him a few questions out of those I mentioned here. He thought & thought and smiled. He said no one has asked me these questions. “These questions are making me think & let me therefore write them down and work on it. It will give me clarity of thinking and possibly way ahead”.

What he revealed later was quite interesting. He shared “when I have bounced these thoughts off other close friends, they were unable to give me any valuable insight to help me set my decision, leaving me as indecisive and confused as previously”.

So when you come to a point where you cannot tolerate where you are, because you want to celebrate your goals, it's time for a new start. Begin with these questions.

Mr HR Manager , There is an elephant in the room !

My own data & findings are not new. It further corroborates which most always feared was the case. Human resource function has to work more to make employees trust people and organizations.

Trust has been long been seen & believed as one key factor in helping people create long lasting and fruitful relationships. Yet we find that this subject is not being discussed by HR at senior levels. Is not building relationship between employees, organization the basis to attracting & retaining talent?

HR and HR systems are very important to the process of building trust. If we do not change the basic HR processes around promotion, appraisal, reward, leader selection and so on to reflect the importance of trust to the organisation, we are not going to get trust.” And it’s just as important for organisations that already have high levels of trust to maintain them.

Here in lies the biggest challenge for HR. HR itself is not trusted by employees.

HR is seen & perceived as siding with top management. The exercise of annual performance appraisal leads a lot to be desired and HR is seen as people & function holding back more than revealing. There association and anchoring of any right sizing & restructuring exercise in the organization also creates trust issues with employees.

HR is also challenged by behaviours at leadership level added to the fact that senior leadership teams tend not to project a cohesive picture. Irrespective HR has a role to play in building & help resolve trust issues? There will always be issues in top teams, but the more dysfunctional they are, the less people trust them. Making sure the head office works as a team and supports the organisation is something HR rarely thinks about.

Why does trust matter at all? Leaders achieve success with teams when they show
& share their vulnerabilities. The willingness for somebody to take a risk, to allow themselves to feel vulnerable, believing the other person has an attitude of goodwill towards them is all about trust building.

It is not engagement. Trust is much more fundamental. If employee just trusts his boss and not the senior leadership team, we can do masses of engagement activities, yet there shall be no radical rise in performance, as people will be viewing those activities through a lens of distrust.Trustworthiness is based on four main drivers: benevolence, ability, predictability and integrity. 

It is not easy. But then HR manager has to decide to get back the respect for his role, team and function. It will be worth the effort. Make a beginning. Make people see the elephant in the room.

Talk about Trust. Make it explicit. 

Establish the business link of trust to results and performance. 

Begin from the leadership level, help them develop self -awareness “How good are they at understanding and managing relationships from their perspective as a leader.”

Invest in training & coaching leaders. 

Help people surface out trust issues, put them on the table and discuss them. Be the facilitator. 

 The role & job is cut out. HR must lead the way and bring trust issues on the table. This “elephant in the room” can be ignored only at the cost of organizational performance in these challenging & competitive times. Begin now.