5. Confidentiality Is Key

A sense of trust and safety is critical to a productive coaching experience. Coaching isn’t therapy, but you should feel comfortable revealing any relevant information to your coach.

It’s not uncommon for personal issues to arise that are not entirely business-related, but affect outcomes for better or worse. Make sure your coach has a confidentiality policy with which you’re comfortable.

6. Look for Psychological Savvy

While advanced degrees aren’t any guarantee of effectiveness, a psychologically informed coach can help you use interpersonal dynamics to finesse conflicts and reduce any negative impact on company performance.

A good coach will be multifaceted – able to combine one-on-one coaching with effective team intervention as needed. Knowledge of both interpersonal and group dynamics is important to successful outcomes.

7. Establish a Schedule That Meets Your Needs

At this point in your career you’ve probably attended more than your share of meetings. What you don’t need are more meetings to talk about theory.

For best use of your time and to capitalize on real-life situations, most senior executives benefit from coaching in real-time. Having a consultant available to work with you, onsite, is best approach to getting results you want.

Find someone whose schedule fits into your needs. The best coach does little good if he or she is only available for phone calls.

8. Value Honesty

The best coach isn’t afraid to tell you things you need to hear

Remember, higher up you are in company, harder it is to get honest information. People around you have a vested interest in keeping you happy. Many of them may also fear a “kill messenger” response.

It’s easy for coaches with minimal training to fall into a trap of giving feel-good answers. After all they risk being fired if they give advice client doesn’t like.

Dr. Steven Berglas, former Harvard psychiatrist and instructor at UCLA’s Anderson school, explained in an interview with Chief Executive Magazine, “A lot of times consultants and coaches are deemed great because they’re adding syrup to a sundae. They just go along; they’re ‘gaysayers’ and proponents.” The CEO may feel good, but little progress is made. In fact, according to Berglas, an “alarming number” of coaches who lack psychological training hurt their clients more than they help them.

Instead of looking for consensus, weigh your coach’s input before you make your own decision. After all, that’s what you’re paying for.

9. Give your coach access.

Make it easy for your consultant to do his or her job. Allow ample rein to inquire, research, survey, whatever it takes to thoroughly understand issues and, most importantly, get you information you need.

Locating right coach for your needs can be tricky but these guidelines can increase your chances for success. They will help you launch an ongoing, beneficial partnership with your coach and keep it that way. With right collaboration, you’ll find that you can significantly compress time you need to achieve your most important goals.

© 2005 Dr. Robert Karlsberg & Dr. Jane Adler

Whatever you write about should be something you are knowledgeable on and your information is factual. Incorrect or untrue information can come back to haunt you.

Recently I read an article by someone claiming to be an Internet marketing expert. Their article was about gaining visibility on Net. To find out how much visibility this so called expert has I did a name search on author. The “expert” author had only 10 postings under his name. Not very impressive when other experts have thousands of listings. The author immediately lost credibility.

3.Presentations – One of most incredibly effective ways to market your product or service is to offer a complimentary information seminar. When you provide great information that is of interest to your market you have become a resource before you are a vendor.

By positioning yourself as a resource you are marketing in a very unique way.

Hosting a presentation can be virtually expense free. You can offer to do a presentation at a staff meeting for a client. Many large companies have brown bag lunch speaking opportunities.

You can host a meeting open to public at your local library. Be sure to send press releases to local media when you are offering a presentation open to public.

Many associations, including your local Chamber of Commerce, are constantly seeking presenters who can provide timely and content driven talks that benefit their members.

When you apply one of three recommendations to your marketing mix you will gain benefit. When you apply all three results can be phenomenal.