When I mentioned this to a friend over coffee, they were surprised. All their training as a manager and director focused on being prepared. Managing meetings to make the most of them needed an agenda, so where was I going with this?
When I coach CEOs and MDs, the agenda is not mine to set. We have agreed goals and objectives, but our meetings must be free-flowing and not a prescriptive exercise in box-ticking.
A consultant might take the lead or offer solutions. A coach is a guide. We’re not there to judge or appraise decisions. We are there to help the leaders of today’s organisations explore the challenges and their reactions to them – and that can be incredibly liberating for those we work with.
If this sounds wishy-washy, it’s not. As a coach, I need the agility and business experience to follow the CEO’s train of thought, make the mental leaps they do, and challenge and build. Knowing what we’re out to achieve, my role is to work with the ideas and issues as they arise and to steer the CEO towards fresh insights.
One of the great joys of my role is the dynamic that develops during coaching sessions. And one of the greatest rewards is when the person I’m coaching says they didn’t expect the meeting to take the direction it did. It shows that I’m asking the right questions and encouraging them to think differently, which you can’t achieve if you stick rigidly to an agenda.
