Vistage Chair Peter Hills: Top tips for coaching

My Coaching Journey

I recently hit 25 years of being a Chair and it’s understandably given me some chance to reflect on everything that’s been wonderful and how some things differ from my early expectations.

In April 2000 I started running meetings with groups of CEOs and also my coaching journey with 121s began.

To say I was nervous is an understatement and I was sceptical as to whether my business experience would be relevant for many of my members who ran very different types of organisations than I had.

I have since learnt that most challenges are around money or people in one form or another .

I also thought that to prove my worth I would need to be able to offer key nuggets of advice and navigate my way around problems I didn’t really understand, like the heavy industrial manufacturer who had a dilemma around which expensive new machine to invest in.

At the heart of my coaching is a belief that usually the person you are helping knows the answer to their dilemma and it is my job to ask the right questions, feed back observations and challenge limiting beliefs.

There are occasions when you may have very specific experience of a highly specialised nature where it may be appropriate to share and be more directive (my example is always if a building is on fire and I am with someone who knows the way out I don’t want coaching towards the exit)

Mostly we do not need to switch into advice mode (however seductive it feels) and helping someone come to the best conclusion without too much steering is very powerful and rewarding.

The best coaching questions for all of us stem from curiosity and do not have the solution, that has popped into your brain,  embedded in them.

It always sounds incredibly easy but in practice takes some mastering and self management.

In my view in order to become a great coach you have to work on yourself first.

I have many traits which are not  a great basis for coaching (a butterfly brain with a short attention span).

I have worked hard on these and other traits through self coaching and it has made a tremendous difference for me personally as well as the people I work with as a coach.

Coaching is not for fixing others, it is understanding how you can improve yourself and then help others do the same.

Peter Hills – Vistage Group Chair

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