Many Reasons to Listen

To whom shall we listen? I just completed the account of Barack Obama's winning Presidential campaign. When I read I look for the underlying principles of that activity or situation. This approach applies to mysteries, novels, non-fiction ... everything: to what shall I "listen" and what is there to learn?

It occurs to me that I listen powerfully only after I know why and what I'm listening for ... that includes what I'm interested in, want to know about, or even to discover something entirely new. For a coach, listening is the key coaching technique ... how else can we have the conversation and explore what the client wishes.

Back to the campaign account ... there's a lot to learn or re-learn in this well-written book: The Audacity to Win. David Plouffe clearly articulates how the core management team (along with the candidate) created a strategy, tested it in Iowa (for a win nobody predicted), and stayed with the strategy even in the face of naysayers. I don't mean to laud being stubborn ... not at all. Events demanded decisions and some re-direction but the original strategy was never changed.

What does that mean for you and me? We coaches seem to gravitate to marketing solutions of every kind and promise ... to a fault, actually. The best strategy is to pick one and go for it with a realistic optimism and hard work. That's all that works ... there's no magic to building a successful coaching practice. Wishing won't make it so.

I started this blog with the concept of listening. The result of listening powerfully is to make smart decisions (for our own practices) and to really hear what the client wants all the while picking up the clues that reveal the client's underlying limits.