Coaching - A Devalued Currency?

I recently resigned after 5 years as a founder member and an Honorary VP of the Association for Coaching. Not because there was anything wrong with the association or the commitment of their members but because I want to move away from coaching and the things that it's become associated with. I believe that it's a currency that has become de-valued.

I still believe that coaching and mentoring are powerful interventions that bring unique insights and change to people who are engaged in these processes. I still believe that it has a place in collaborative management and leadership - and especially so in selling where there are unique opportunities to apply it - such as after field visits and appraisals.

However when you show up at a conference and a speaker asks 'to be saved from 23 -year old 'life coaches' who can't find their way to the bathroom' I have to agree. The influx of people into coaching in the last 7 years who manage no more 'than a cup of coffee and a staring match' - the lack of structure, format and measurement of outputs, the numbers who were trained by counsellors and can't differentiate between a business imperative and a personal issue is depressing - and they're everywhere.

I still intend to continue 'coaching' but I'm searching for a better name - one that represents the kind of value that can be brought to the client during the process (and long after the process).

I define coaching as 'a collaborative partnership between a coach and a client and a system that identifies perceived obstacles, generates solutions, sets objectives and implement actions based on personal accountability' (Weafer 2001) - but lately I've started to refer to it as 'structured conversations'. Conversations that facilitate joint-insights, create plans and measures the outcomes from those plans.

I'd love to have something more succinct.

The Perfect Sales Storm

I know that this has a phrase that has been beaten to death recently with regard to reporting on the recession but I thought it summed up the situation we are facing in B2B selling right now.

I had lunch with a successful senior executive last week to discuss how he was getting on with a recent role move. His job is to re-invigorate a very large sales team within a very well established firm and a very well known name. To his horror he has discovered something of great interest to all of us charged with leading the way back from the brink.

It's not just that his sales people have neither sales process nor sales relationship skills - but his sales managers don't have it either and so can't support the front line sales people. Yes folks the truth has dawned - we are dealing not just with sales people who have been order-taking and not really selling (actively acquiring and building profitable relationships) but a whole generation of sales managers have been promoted who don't have the skills of relationship or process selling either.

Traditionally sales managers were good sales people who were promoted to keep them and their sales ability within the firm. They might have traditionally lacked leadership skills but at least they had the sales skills. Many of today's generation of sales managers have neither the sales or the leadership skills - and that is the perfect storm.

I work with firms to provide a three-tiered intervention that deals with just such a scenario. if your firm is facing just such a 'perfect storm' and you'd like some complimentary guidance on how best to resolve it drop us a line here and let's talk. We've got the skills to help you ride out the storm.