Why everyone could use a coach

Not every profession has them, but coaches apparently rock.

You have to work at what you’re not good at. In theory, people can do this themselves. But most people do not know where to start or how to proceed. Expertise, as the formula goes, requires going from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence to conscious competence and finally to unconscious competence. The coach provides the outside eyes and ears, and makes you aware of where you’re falling short. 

This is tricky. Human beings resist exposure and critique; our brains are well defended. So coaches use a variety of approaches—showing what other, respected colleagues do, for instance, or reviewing videos of the subject’s performance. The most common, however, is just conversation.

This hit me clearly when I took ice skating lessons last winter. The 20-yr-old who tried to teach me a backwards crossover would just say, "Just do this. You just gotta go for it." No dice. The veteran coach watched me and instantly knew how to teach the move. "Start standing still, arms out, then twist your hips sideways." And voila: my feet were crossed.

I'm trying to be a good coach at work. And I want to learn more about the Kansas Coaching Project.

Atul Gawande's piece in the New Yorker.