Saqib Rasool

Trying to create a balance is like trying to chop up the executive into pieces fitted into boxes as equally as possible. This is futile. What works is bringing the executive's attention to what really matters to them. The coach must remind them to care for their health so clients can perform well and enjoy the fruit of their labor. Let the client own what is important to them, and help them think and commit to what's important. This is the key to helping people create harmony and balance in their work and personal lives. Trying to create it directly will almost always fail.

If your leadership team is struggling with communication issues, it is indicative that they are missing the skills for listening to each other's concerns and insisting they are right, albeit in fancy ways. By listening to each other they can begin to make sense together, a sense that is shared among all parties from which they could begin to be authentic and real about what matters. Trying to use techniques for communication, trying to be articulate in delivery, and trying to win arguments by sophistry produces mistrust and stuckness that then looks like communication issues.

Working off of the SMART model is a mistake. The coach's effectiveness must be measured by the results the client is having in their work, career, business, and life. A coach's worth can only be measured by the coach's ability to satisfy the customer and provoke breakthrough insight and emotional energy for bold action in the executive. Goal-setting exercises assume that the future is known and stable, and they can trap executives into futile projects. Coaching in the 21st century is about producing the ability for dynamic action in the executive by helping learn how to deal with interruptions and breakdowns and building emotional fortitude.

The question has some blindness and fundamental flaws in its design. The coach is in service to the executive. The coach is not a problem solver or solution provider. If the coach has this confusion, the coach will likely put their esteem on whether their strategy and advice are accepted. This will pit the coach against the executives and show that the coach lacks the fundamental skills required for the job. A successful coach does not get into a power struggle with the client but deeply listens to what matters and becomes a good mirror by asking questions and listening. The coach can offer assessments but must do so without attachment to the fact that they are accepted. Executives must assess coaches' humility before hiring.

You cannot assess views from a third-party perspective. Each top executive is bound to have differing priorities, which is why they are top executives. The solution is to make sense of each other's priorities by listening to each other. Most people get stuck about their priorities when they have experiences that they have yet to be listened to, and listening does not mean agreement. The executives are likely to relent, yield, and collaborate in setting priorities by having been listened to and gotten. The key is to build trust by caring about what others care about and sharing with them what you care about. This method emerges as a new shared sense that is the basis of all cooperation and future design.

The key is not to find the right balance but to organize the conversation about urgency because it leads to a long-term future you are designing. If your urgencies seem disconnected from the long-term discussion, you have a fantasized plan about the future, which will not likely arrive. With every action, you build a future. When driving, you are headed in some direction and have emergencies like flat tires. Fixing the flat tire is a step into the long term. You don't work on the long term like it is a thing to be worked on. Each moment, you push towards the long term.