Why Every Leader Needs a Coach (and How to Know If You’re Ready)

Milan: [00:00:00] Good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are and whenever you’re listening. This is the next episode of Cardcast, a little podcast where Ged and I pick up a random card of the CEO game deck, and we’ll talk about it. So we’ll go very, very quick. We will shuffle and see what comes up and what is it that we’ll talk about today.

Ged: Okay. So the episode that popped out from the shuffle is why a coach? So I guess the question we’re asking here is why should you get a coach? And, you know, not everyone wants a coach. Not everyone wants to be coached. Not everyone can be coached. And I guess the conversation today is, you know, why should you s- even think about getting a coach?

So if you’ve, if you’ve tried to learn a language or learn an instrument or, or started a diet or tried to get fit, and you’ve tried to do that by yourself, how has that gone for you? Now, most evidence would suggest that, you know, trying to do [00:01:00] something by yourself doesn’t generally work. You know, the, the vast majority of us need some sort of routine, rhythm, or accountability to really get something bedded in because, you know, a diet is not about a diet, you know, and getting fit isn’t about getting fit.

It’s about be- the behavior change that puts you in the right situation, the right context, the right frame of mind with the right accountability to be able to actually do what you want to do. Wanting to do something isn’t the same as doing it, and the best way of actually doing it is to have that rhythm, routine, and accountability, which is what a coach brings.

What are your thoughts?

Milan: Now you just covered the whole episode. I wanted to s- you know, when you, when you brought that card up, I was like, it’s a very, very existential question because we could reframe the card as why do we exist?

Ged: Mm-hmm.

Milan: You know?

Ged: Very existential

Milan: Yeah, yeah, very much so. Look, I think that there are a couple of things we need to talk about, right?

[00:02:00] Are they people who are wildly successful and they never had a coach? Absolutely. Some of us are just wired that way. Majority of us are not. You know, how many top athletes go there without a coach, right? The coach is an accel-accelerator ’cause they can help you to pick up the right path forward.

They can help you to the next lever to push, the next book to read, whatever that is. They’re removing the… You know, the steps might be the same, but they just become much more concentrated. And again, it’s, it’s all about acceleration and time to value, and you know, you mentioned accountability, and I think that’s a big one for me because, I’m– I have a running joke with my personal trainer, which is that, hey, you know, 20% of what I am paying them is to, tell me what to do, and 80% of what I am paying them is so I show up, right? And I think that when I shared this with [00:03:00] Damian, he he thought that I was being too generous.

It’s more like 90 to 10 rather than 80/20. But really, it, it is a, a big part of it, right? This is behavioral change, and behavioral change is hard, and doing a behavioral change on your own is, is harder still. We have our biases, we have our tu-tunnel vision, we have our habits that we need to get out of, and without that mirror, without somebody who comes from the outside and tells us, it’s not, not easy.

That’s why even coaches have coaches, right?

Ged: Absolutely, yeah. I mean, you mentioned, you know, the, the sporting context, you know, that no Olympic team or no Olympic athlete, you know, won gold at the Olympics without having a coach. You know, the

Milan: Mm-hmm.

Ged: Rugby teams, you know, it’s probably more of a, a thing over here than it is over in, in your part of the world, but, you know, they have a forwards coach, a backs coach, a scrummaging coach, a kick out coach, you know.

You know, the, the, the… They have coaches for every single facet of the game because [00:04:00] coaches bring something that the individual players cannot. You know, it’s that accountability. One thing I think we should s- we should spend a moment on is, you know, what actually is coaching, because a lot of people who say they want a coach don’t actually want a coach, they want an advisor.

So what’s the difference between a mentor or a teacher or an advisor or a consultant, a coach? Well, in my mind, you know, a teacher is someone who teaches something from something they’ve learnt or experienced. Now, and a, a mentor is someone who tries to impart their knowledge and experience into someone else.

Normally someone more junior, but not always. Now, an advisor is someone who says, “You know, this is what I did, and this will work for you as well if you do it too.” A consultant is someone that says, “You should do this. This is what you should do.” Whereas a coach is just there to ask the question. Ask the question that’s gonna get the right outcome for the person who’s being coached.

So when people say a coach, they want a coach, [00:05:00] they often mean, “I actually want someone advisor. Someone… I want, I want an advisor.” And they’re expecting someone to have experience in the industry or the situation or the context that they’re in, so they can advise them on what to do. That’s not what we do as coaches.

As coaches, we’re asking the questions that get the right outcome, that we know where the answers get the right outcome for the coachee. Do you see it differently?

Milan: I see it similar. I think that this is a very valid definition. Right I sometimes explain that the difference between, between a consultant and coach is that a consultant knows everything and coach knows nothing. You know, that’s our sort of starting, you know, that’s our starting gambit, right?

Like, I don’t need to know anything about your business because I’m not here for that. What I am here for is to grow you as a person, right? As a, you know, as a leader, as, you know, whatever it is, whatever it is that we are doing. I am not here to fix your company for you. I am [00:06:00] here to make you a leader who will fix the company or who will, who will do that.

I think that’s the main thing. You know, we don’t show up and build them a strategy as consultants would, But we’ll– We do some teaching, right? Or we’ll point them to resources, but… And we share tools, but ultimately our job is for them as leaders to be in a better place we leave than they were when we found them. That’s all, all it is about, right? Really. Like you know, my main thing is that if, if I see people grow, if I see them stepping up, if they see them… You know, I got this beautiful, beautiful email from a mentee of mine after about six months working. So he described, you know, what, what he’s done last month, and at the end was, “Am I You know, that made my day, you wouldn’t believe, right? It was just fantastic because that-that’s what it is about, right? Like increasing the confidence, increasing the the, [00:07:00] the joy of, of what they’re doing. That’s what we’re doing as coaches and, and, you know, the… Generally, you know, healthy, growing organization, you can consider it as the means to get there.

For me, it’s kind of a byproduct.

Ged: So Milan, you, you’re in that situation where you were a CEO, and then you were a CEO who was coached. Now– and now you’re a coach. So you’ve got this unique perspective of the, the needs and the, you know, the, the transitions from those different stages. So, you know, as a CEO, what led you to get a coach and then what led you to then become a coach?

Milan: You know, it’s so interesting, right? Because a lot of coaches we know are, are former CEOs who were coached, right? Because I think that as a CEO in both roles, or in, in both stages, like without a coach and with a coach you see how much better it is when the coach is there, you’re saying, “Oh, I, I want this [00:08:00] for more people,” right?

Like, this is, this, this, this was great. You know, regardless of the company and everything like that the difference in the speed of growth, in the, in the ease of progress, right? Because you’re progressing, you’re learning, and you stumble along here, there. Then a, a coach shows up and say, “Hey, eh, there is a pitfall.

Go that way. You know, you’re missing this piece, so it will bite you in the ass in, in three months unless you deal with that now.” Right? All of those things are so important. Yes, they’re delivered as coaching, which means that they’re delivered as a skill, so the next time I come into a similar type of situation, I already have the thinking pattern, and, and on it goes. So you know, as – As any young CEO I thought that I was perfectly capable of doing everything by myself. And the more I [00:09:00] learned, the more, more I realized that maybe it’s not necessarily that. And you know, I picked up Shannon’s books, right? You were coaching at the time already. I wasn’t. Know, I was in that place, and eventually I found my way to Damian, and worked with Damian for a couple of years, and that was the inspiration. Again, realizing how different it is than when you have a coach and, you know, I was looking at the impact of my coaching on my team, the fact that I was being coached with the team. Because I, I always personally drew the biggest satisfaction, not necessarily from the PNL, but from seeing how people are growing around me. Because and then the PNL has kind of tendency to take care of itself eventually, right? So that is the-that, that was what drove me. So then when a opportunity presented itself for me to become coach, which I think I [00:10:00] told that story.

A friend of mine got a new CEO gig and asked me to coach him. You know, long story short, I was like, ” I don’t know if I should do that.” He said, “I’ll be your guinea pig.” You know, he gave me that, he gave me that, and that was seven years ago, right? It’s interesting how the journey develops.

Then I saw that I can have the same impact that brings me so much joy, which is, you know, seeing people grow, and I can do it at scale. You know, I can

Ged: Yeah

Milan: More, in more companies, right? In, in more people. And that that was sort of the turning point for me. And then eventually I found my way to start doing this full-time and you know, and The Little Cars are just extension of that.

But that’s you know, that’s where we are at today. Did I answer

Ged: Yeah. No, abs- absolutely. And, you know, the, your, your last point about, you know, you, you can do it at scale was the reason I moved from running businesses to becoming a coach because, you know, I loved running businesses, but it was also incredibly hard. [00:11:00] It was… It took a huge amount out of you.

Milan: Are you

Ged: And-

Milan: Is easy? Didn’t notice that

Ged: I think it’s… I don’t think it’s easy, I think it’s easier. Yeah, I think it’s easier. A- and I mean, just, just finishing my thought there for me, I love, I loved what I was doing, but if I could do a lot more of it, then that was really interesting to me. So rather than watching and seeing and affecting one company’s growth, I could now do the same for a whole portfolio of companies, and that was why I moved to becoming a coach

Milan: Yeah, I wouldn’t use the word easier, right? Because yes, it might be easier for you or for even for me, right? Because, we found our zone of genius, and this is, this is where we want to be. This is where we want to put our energy, and this is where we focus, and you automatically become better on things you spend time doing. You can’t you know, you can’t that. But to say that coaching is easy because what we are trying to do is [00:12:00] to… We are actually teaching our leaders to be coaches, right? Because they have to coach their teams and their leaders and, and so on and so on. The whole coach cascading system comes from it, right?

And which is why so many Metronomic CEOs became coaches because they were actually coached to be coaches

Ged: Yeah, absolutely

Milan: And then you walk away you, then you walk away with those skills and say, you know, you sell a company or you do whatever and say, “Well, I actually have this skill, and I kinda like it.”

Not everybody does, but but many of us do, and that’s that’s how you get there. Yeah, don’t, don’t ever say that it’s easier than running the company because then people will start asking you for discounts, man. Don’t do it.

Ged: They see the value they get, so the money is is irrelevant.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Milan: A good question. What is the value that the,

Ged: Mmhmm

Milan: A CEO gets? In my case, CEO and the whole leadership team, because I work you know, I work a little broader, [00:13:00] in a, in, in a little more high-touch scenario than you do. We, we know that we have a, we have a different style, right?

Ged: Yeah, yeah. Look, I, I think the, if I was to sort of answer that in one, in one example it’s not necessarily what the CEO gets, but I’m often very… I, I g- I get to know the CEO’s partner, whether it’s male or female. And the highest accolade I can get, and this happens quite a lot, is when the partner comes to me and says, “Thank you so much for what you’ve done.

I’ve got my partner back, and our kids have got their partner back.” So regardless of what happens day-to-day for the CEO, it’s what happens around them. The impact coaching can have on their partner, their family, their, you know, their, their being in the world, their quality of life. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Milan: Yeah

Ged: So q- quick question, Milan.

Can everyone be coached?

Milan: Does everyone want to?

Ged: No. Mm-hmm.

Milan: That’s one part. If you don’t want to, you can’t be coached, definition. And are there people who [00:14:00] think that they want to be coached? I think that I’ve run into people who Convince themselves that they wanted to be coached, but the reality was elsewhere. We’ve I’ve run into people who did not have the capability because they by, you know, by definition, if you already know everything if

Ged: You don’t need a coach

Milan: And all you just need is people to acknowledge that right? Then you need a PR agent, not a coach. So to answer the question simply, no, not everybody. On the other hand, if you have the desire and the willingness, the help is out there, and then magic things can happen, right?

Ged: So to wrap up today and referencing a recent episode we recorded, if you don’t have an assistant, get an assistance, and also if you don’t have a coach, you should go and get a coach