Maybe you’ve only recently heard about this coaching thing. Many Fortune 500 companies have been hiring executive coaches to work with their leadership teams for decades. Today, we seem to have entered a cultural moment where self-actualization has become a higher priority than ever before.
The reasons for this are fascinating to think about but ultimately, we’ve collectively found ourselves in a place where we’re able to have more high-level concerns than we could 50 or 100 years ago. We’re not as concerned with pure survival and therefore are able to think about bigger questions.
Startups are one of the main ways that ambitious people today are attempting to apply higher level thinking to all sorts of questions. And startup founders are some of the people that benefit from working with an executive coach. Here are a few ways that coaching can help startups and their founders get on and stay on the right track.
Freshening your perspective. The reason you founded a startup in the first place is because you had a vision. Undoubtedly you have a path plotted in your head of where you want to go and how to get there. Unfortunately, as you’ve surely found out, it’s not always so simple. Roadblocks can happen at even the seemingly simplest steps of the way, and sometimes an outside perspective is the best way to shake up your preconceptions and really encourage you to reassess.
Offering unbiased advice. Sometimes you need someone to offer brutally honest advice with the knowledge that it won’t affect your relationship to them, or their pay, or anything else. That’s what I do. I’ve started four businesses and two non-profits so I have experienced ups and downs of many stripes. Coaches ask tough questions that you’re unlikely to ask yourself. Together, a coach can help break down barriers you maybe didn’t know existed.
Facilitating connections, in the office and out. This is not about networking; you’re more or less on your own there. It’s about connecting the dots of your business and personal life so that you’re really running at your optimum performance level all the time. The right coach can help you make the right moves with your team, weigh decisions, and identify potential pitfalls along the way.
Setting goals and holding you accountable. A huge part of achieving success and feeling successful at the same time is setting goals and reaching them. The right coach can help you set tangible goals and establish a path to get there. They will also work with you to set up a system of accountability that ensures you’re working to achieve the goals you set, and if you don’t there’s a price to pay.
If you feel like you could use some guidance getting your startup on track or simply think that you could benefit from the kind of perspective and accountability that a professional coaching relationship provides, contact me at scott@doubledareyou.us or schedule a coaching session here.
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