The
Coaching Approach to Growth
By Tony Stoltzfus
A while back I was agonizing over how to
fund a new venture. Do I raise money, and spend the added time to form a board
and do books for a non-profit? Do I enlist investors and give up ownership in
the organization? Or do I take out a personal loan (which I find distasteful)
and run it as a business? Several self-imposed deadlines had come and gone, and
I still couldn’t decide.
Finally I sat down with my friend Tim, a
successful businessman who’s also a coach, and asked for help. I laid out my
conundrum in detail, going through the pluses and minuses of each option, and
then inquired: “What do you think I should do?” He thought for a moment, and
then responded, “I think you know in your heart what the answer is.”
Darn! I wanted him to tell me what to do!
So I steered the conversation back around and posed the same question in a
different way. Tim thought for a moment—and then gave me an identical reply!
When we said goodbye, I was frustrated to
not have an answer, but his coaching also left me feeling strangely empowered
to face my decision and make a choice. On the way home, God spoke to me: “If
you don’t have the confidence to invest in yourself, you’ll never achieve what
you are capable of.” When I talked it over with my wife, I found that God had
spoken to her that day, too, and we made a great decision together to move
forward.
Why take the time to help people
figure out their own solutions when it is so much easier to tell them the
“right answer?” It always seems to take longer to help people think things
through than it does to do the thinking for them. So what’s the benefit of
taking a coaching approach and asking instead of telling?
The story recounted above is a great
example of the power of coaching. Here are six things that Tim accomplished by
asking that never would have come from giving advice:
§
Empowerment. By not telling me what to do, Tim sent a powerful message: “I believe
in you! I believe you know what to do. I believe you can hear God on this. You
can make a great choice.” His belief in me gave me the confidence I needed to
make a decisive choice.
§
Ownership. Because I made the decision, I
owned it. It was my choice. If Tim had told me what to do and it didn’t work
out, then whose fault would it be?
§
Motivation. When people come up with their own
ideas and solutions, they are most motivated to pursue them. The pivotal factor
in change isn’t knowing what to do; it’s having the motivation to get it done.
Tim’s approach produced the highest possible motivation in me to move
forward—in fact, within 24 hours I had already acted on something I’d put off
for months.
§
Leadership Development. Tim’s approach compelled me as a
leader to take responsibility for living out my call. A leader’s sphere of
influence is directly proportional to his or her ability to take
responsibility. By pushing me to grow in responsibility, Tim helped me grow as
a leader.
§
Growth in Hearing God. Tim challenged me to hear the voice
of God for myself. His approach didn’t just result in one great decision: by
strengthening my ability to hear God, he’s impacted every decision I’ll make
from here on.
§ You
Could Be Wrong. I
gave Tim three options: that means any advice he gave me would have a
two-out-of-three chance of being wrong. You won’t realize how often your
discernment about other’s is wrong until you stop giving advice and start
waiting to see what God actually does!
Adapted
from The Peer Coaching Workbook by
Tony Stoltzfus, www.Coach22.com