How Bold can we be ?

I read a really interesting piece a while back, on how culpable Executive Coaches were for the 2008 crash. Its something I’ve come back to for reflection on a number of occasions, and with the beginning of the UK’s formal transition out of the EU now underway, it seems a good as time as any to revisit the question; How bold can we be?

You’ll recall my favourite quote from Churchill, which begins; “Now is a time to try men of force and vision..” It was a clarion call for boldness and bravery during our darkest hour, in pursuit of the defeat of the Axis forces. And quite rightly – desperate times meant that nothing should be off the table in terms of strategy and tactics. But look at today; we tell our young people they can be anything they want to be. To reach high, and take on the world. This is all very commendable, but the inevitable truth is that 98% of the population are going to end up being sorely disappointed with the outcome.

Within coaching, we work to unlock potential, and overcome the seemingly impossible. We are often handed the brightest talent in a company – future  c-suite candidates who are going places. The company believes in them, they are being developed rapidly, and if we are not extremely careful, hubris is the only real outcome. Coaches are part of the problem here. We are nurturing our coachees to be the very best they can be. But if this is too problem oriented, too task-focussed, we leave behind that most important aspect; ethics.

It is easy to get sucked in to success. The ringing bell every time a big deal comes good, the big bonus, the big pat on the back from the CEO or the shareholders that see you as some business world Cassius Clay. And this was the argument for the involvement of coaches in the stock market crash. There we were, building these ‘machines’ who knew no fear, successful in the present frame, but all the time, through becoming more detached from what is right, building a rising mass of pressure of bad debt, stringy deals, and irrecoverable commitment.

This is why, when I do chemistry with a potential coachee, there are several things I want to know. The company expectations are a start; What are their intrinsic values? But the main thing is whether the coachee reflects that? Do they have their own ethical compass? Am I working with someone who is clearly a ‘By any means’ personality? I like bold, I love vision and I celebrate ambition. But having been around these people organisationally, what I didn’t like what the cost was – what they did to others, and the reputational damage they did to their employee.

In the UK Government we’ve now got a ‘c-suite’ which has the whole future of a nation in their hands. There’s bullishness, ambition and pride in there. But I sincerely hope that somewhere in there, a capable, ethical coach is working hard to keep a rick on that boldness. This perhaps isn’t the time for quite that level of force, and vision that served us well in history. It’s a time for caution, humility, kindness and respect. Gunboat diplomacy may have worked in the time of the Empire, but there needs to be a sense of reality, and understanding that we no longer enjoy a position of natural strength. It will be interesting times ahead, for sure.

Derek Flint Cert.Ed., MCIPR