Christopher V. Flett

I think it takes a certain type of person to be successful as a business adviser/coach. You have to have the right mix of experience, success, empathy, and discipline. It is too easy for clients to come in, throw up their hands and want you to ‘fix’ their business. Same goes for all relationships in your business. From clients to employees, and vendors to alliances, you will come across people that want you to do it for them rather than learn how to do it on their own. Where this becomes an issue is when you start to do it for them, rather than with them. We have some new coaches joining the Ghost CEO, and the first thing I say to them is, “you must learn the difference between a consultant and a coach. A consultant creates dependency by doing the work for a client; a coach teaches the client how to do the work and empowers them to make it happen.

Clients are explained the difference when they start, but more times than not, they want the coach to fix it for them. I used to be this type of coach. I’d know that I could do it quicker then the client could, so I’d get in there and do the fixing. What I realized is that they weren’t getting the tools. Instead, they were becoming more and more dependent on me, knowing that I could get them out of most messes they get themselves into. Then one day, an advisor of mine told me that I was life guarding rather than swim instructing. She said that clients would ’swim into deep water’ knowing that I would rescue them if they got into trouble. What I should be doing is swimming out when they are in trouble, and asking them if they wanted me to ’show’ them how to swim back. It wasn’t about ‘dragging’ them back to shore. Rather it was about teaching them how to get back on their own. They would either A) follow my instruction and swim back, or B) drown.

That might sound a bit cold, but all of us need to realize that we must only take responsibility for our own path. We can leverage the knowledge of others to guide us the right way, but in the end, we should live or die on the decisions we make. I see women trying to ‘fix’ those in their lives. “Help their husband find a job he likes better”, “Re-write a friend’s resume who is looking for a job”, etc. The problem with this is you are dis-empowering those that you are trying to help. If they don’t want the change bad enough to take action, then leave them alone. If they come looking for help, offer them support by pointing them to resources. Husband to a recruiter; friend to a website on how to write a good resume. I find that with partners, I have to hold myself back from trying to wrangle the reins away from them to run the company. That’s not my job. My job is to be the adviser plotting course for the company. Their job is to run it. When I step into this role, one of two things happen. The partner steps up and leads or the company sits idol waiting for a driver. It kills me to watch this happen, but it is something I now can deal with. If I want it worse than the partner wants it, it’s a bad deal for me. If I wanted to do all the work, why would I share in the revenues?

Look to the areas in your life where you are supporting something and ask yourself, “Am I trying to drag this person somewhere with my horsepower, or am I empowering them to do it on their own with the right tools.” If you are doing the former, you aren’t doing them any favours; if doing the latter, you are giving them a gift that keeps on giving.