We Can All Use a Little Help Sometimes

For many years tennis star Roger Federer didn't have a coach. Then, every now and then, he does. My question was, if he's the number one player in the world, what's a coach going to do for hm? I mean, how can a coach help him if he's not better than him?

OK, I admit, I was being a little dumb. While Roger may be the best player in the world, that's not to say there aren't people who are better at one particular thing or another. If there are things he needs to work on, especially when transitioning between surfaces or after having a not-so-great tournament, then having another person to provide guidance can be a good thing.

You should consider this too: there may be times when it's right for you to consult with a business coach. A coach can be useful for helping you develop specific leadership or management skills, maybe teaching you how to counsel people or helping you get better at marketing. Leaders in small and medium-sized companies tend to be the bulk of the clientele for coaches, but that may simply be because many large companies have in-house coaching teams.

When should you consider getting a coach? A great time is during a period of transition. If you're changing the direction of your firm drastically a coach can help you make that adjustment. Similarly, if you are the one in transition -- say, going from being a worker bee to being a leader -- a coach can help get you established in your new position. This is especially useful for Creatives, who may be thrust from a technical position to a leadership job with little advance development of leadership skills. You might also consider a coach when things are going well, because you have time to work on lesser issues that others might go unaddressed during busier, more stressful times.

The coach can work with you as regularly as you want...some people prefer weekly sessions, others every two weeks. The session may be in person or might be by phone. When you start out you need to work with the coach to set clear objectives and lay out a roadmap, with metrics for measuring progress and some kind of timeline so this doesn't just drag on and on and on.

You should consider looking for a coach who has some experience in your field so they can understand your unique needs and opportunities. Ask around among your friends and peers for any info they have on coaches with whom they've worked. Hire someone by reputation, not by price. The cheapest coach may not be the best...then again, the most expensive one might not be, either.

There's nothing wrong with turning to someone for some outside help. Star athletes do it, actors and singers do it, CEOs of major corporations do it, and you might do it too. Sometimes, an outsider's view provides the insight you really need.

Diversity for a Reason

Now, I’ll be the first to say you shouldn’t do things just to say you’re doing them. Unfortunately, a lot of leaders that say they embrace diversity may be saying that simply because it’s what they think they’re supposed to say, without really managing diversity within their workforce in order to improve their firms. But if you understand what diversity means and how it can help you, you’ll discover just how powerful it can really be.

Diversity doesn’t just mean having a mix of men and women, or having people with different skin colors or different religions. What it really comes down to is having people with different perspectives. The point is not to meet some random quota, but instead to bring a range of viewpoints into your firm which can help you understand a broader cross-section of consumers, or provide a wider range of ideas for your firm. Factors like gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, economic class, marital status, education…all of these contribute to one’s perspective on the world, so finding a mix of these attributes can offer you a diverse mix of inputs to your business as well. Without diversity in your workforce you’re more likely to keep working along a narrow path, missing opportunities as they arise because your focus is so limited. In creative fields, that can spell death for a company.

When you’re hiring, try to look beyond the obvious features that signal diversity and instead listen to your potential employees during the interview process to see what they can bring. While asking questions that are too personal is a no-no, listen carefully to how they respond to the questions you do ask to see what they bring. If they offer a perspective that sounds different from what you’re used to, that should be a point in their favor. Expand your recruiting beyond the "normal" places to increase your chances of broadening your corporate perspective. For that matter, expand your recruiting beyond that which your competitors do, so you have a chance to pick up some of the talent they miss.

So in the end, that doesn’t mean you should try to set and meet quotas of so many men, so many women, so many gay, so many straight, so many Asian, so many Latin American…well, you get the point. What you should do instead is create a corporate culture that is open to all these different groups, that actively seeks out new employees from a variety of sources, and that makes use of these various perspectives, so you’re able to attract new employees, hang on to them, and get the most benefit from them.

Don’t celebrate diversity just because a bumper sticker told you that you should. Celebrate it because it’s good for your creative business. And remember that “celebrating diversity” doesn’t just mean having a statement about it in your employee handbook, it means nurturing a culture that sees diversity as the norm and takes full advantage of it.