Carl has requested the rest of us contribute to his series of articles exploring why it is that business coaching works.
Here’s today’s thought, fresh from the desk of Jon, who is spending the day with his friends at Gold Coast Graphic Design.
Business coaching works for many reasons but because this is a blog, I’m going to talk about just one today and save the others for another article.
This keeps my article short, saving your short attention span and my typing fingers.
It works because it’s expensive.
This probably sounds like self-serving bullshit which it is but there’s truth in it, too. Just as with many alternative medicine treatments (and the placebo effect) a good part of the effectiveness of a treatment is the very fact of taking action.
Taking that first decisive step and doing something, while not enough on its own, is a huge contributor to making change. I’m sure it was someone wise who said (I probably saw it on Facebook) “every journey begins with a single step”.
Well I agree. A good part of the value in business coaching lies in making a real and genuine decision to change the way you run your business. The cost of it is part of this.
It’s easy to decide to change things and then not to follow through, though. New Years resolutions are a prime example. Diets are another.
Well business change and business coaching are another.
So the fact that it is expensive does a couple of things – it makes you think about the decision and not take it lightly and, once you’ve made it, it helps you stick to it.
There’s something about spending a lot of money that makes you value the thing you’ve bought more than you would have if it was cheap (I expect there’s a name for this in psychology).
And there’s something about your expensive coach coming to see you for your coaching session (with his invoice in his hand, symbolically, at least) that makes the thought of not having done anything anathema. So the expense that you committed yourself to willingly and consciously, counters your natural inclination to stick to your old habits and resist the change you want.
Right, I’m off to put my price up.
Jon Dale
Small Fish Business Coaching Gold Coast
www.smallfish.com.au