 Coach Tales
Nancy's Coach Tales Issue Three
Book Review: Thomas Leonard's The Portable Coach, which has some value for do-it-yourself coaching but won't put me out of business.
Make Change: Beware Dilbert! Dilbert comes back for more every day, but you don't have to.
Think About It: Take the initiative, Goethe urges us, and Providence follows.
BOOK REVIEW:
A review of The Portable Coach: 28 surefire strategies for business and personal success, by Thomas J. Leonard with Byron Laursen, Scribner 1998.
The Portable Coach is built around a simple concept: make yourself so attractive that people, things and opportunities seek you out rather than the other way around--an approach author Thomas Leonard calls "The Principles of Attraction." He sets forth 28 steps to achieve this nirvana, each with 10 suggestions for how to accomplish each step.
Most of the steps are focused on getting rid of distractions and annoyances in your life that hold you back from getting what you really want. (I particularly liked the chapter on creating super-reserves in your life--I'm still working on having more than enough time, money and space, but I DO have a year's supply of toilet paper in the closet!)
I'm relieved to report that this book will not put me out of business. This is actually not a surprise as Leonard is considered by many to be the father of personal coaching. He founded one of the big coach training institutions and is currently building another program for the care and feeding of coaches, which means he is probably the biggest promoter of hiring coaches of all time. No wonder, then, that Leonard puts a lot of pitches into his book for the reader to hire a personal coach. So is this book helpful for the do-it-yourselfer? Well, yes and no.
If you were to follow his program (and it's quite extensive), you would probably achieve many things you want--new career, better relationships, more time doing what you love--because you would be fixing everything that is bothering you in your life. However, it would take a very long time. And it's hard to stick with a program like that on your own long enough to make a difference. Most people simply slide back into their old patterns of doing things when there is nothing pushing them to stay with a change long enough to turn it into a habit.
In addition (and I'm really not trying to be self-serving here), what you get from a coach is really different from what you could get from any kind of book, even one from the "father of coaching." A coach helps you figure out exactly what you want and how to get there. It's much more direct than trying to follow a formula in a book which tries to help everyone.
Some quibbles: many of the examples seem geared towards sales; the steps and suggestions can get pretty repetitive; and, some concepts can sometimes seem so abstract as to be unusable by an individual. None of this would matter if the book were a magic wand that would change your life. If only.
Realistically speaking, the book is probably best used by coaches to work on the different steps with clients. (Actually, this is how the book is often used since it is a standard for coaches.)
So the bottom line is: for really motivated and disciplined people, this book could be a useful resource for improving any and all areas of their lives. For the rest of us, it could be a "how-to" manual to make a change now and then.
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MAKE CHANGE:
Beware Dilbert!
Let me start out by confessing that I'm a big fan of the comic strip Dilbert. I enjoy the daily skewering of bad--or at least clueless--management. But lately I've started wondering if Dilbert may not be doing more harm than good.
Back in my younger days I was a litigation attorney. Life was hard: spending nights and weekends in the office; doing mind-numbingly dull projects; working for partners with egos the size of Montana; being treated like a cog in a machine. The only thing that kept me going was the daily kvetch session over lunch with my fellow associates. We'd whine and complain about all that was wrong with our job. We'd make jokes about it. Play the "I can top that stupid partner story" game. Generally commiserate on how hard our lives were. It was fun, and I would go back to work with just enough renewed energy to get me through the day.
I now realize that those daily lunch sessions probably kept me in a job that made me miserable for years longer than I would have stayed otherwise. If I hadn't had that opportunity to vent I would have had to wake up much earlier to the fact that my job was draining the joy out of my life. That would then have pushed me to make the change to a career that gets me out of bed in the morning excited about what I will do and learn that day.
I've vowed never again to let myself get into a situation like I was in as an attorney. If I find myself complaining regularly about a job, my first step is to stop complaining. That forces me to actually listen to my feelings. If it's not just a temporary problem I have to do something--either work with my boss to fix the job I'm in, or, if that doesn't work, look for another position where I can get what I need.
I wonder if reading Dilbert doesn't have the same effect on its readers that my lawyer lunches had on me. Does laughing at Dilbert convince people that all managers are stupid, their jobs can't be changed, and no job is fulfilling? Does it allow them to ignore their frustration or distress at where they are so they don't feel the need to change it? If there was no Dilbert, would more people demand that their bosses fix what is wrong and, if that didn't work, vote with their feet? I wonder.
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THINK ABOUT IT:
"Concerning all acts of initiative, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. "
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, late 18th- early 19th century German author and philosopher.
(For a detailed biography of Goethe, try
http://worldroots.com/brigitte/goethe1.htm )
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