Turns Out Executive Coaching, like Rowing, is All About the Team
About 18 months ago, as I was retiring from a 30-year career in corporate management consulting, I decided to get my certification as a professional coach and launch my coaching practice. Since then, I have completed my coursework and am in the final stages of certification with the Co-Active Training Institute. I have built a robust practice with a diverse set of clients from around the world. I coach on a wide variety of topics, from core workplace effectiveness issues (sometimes called executive coaching) to a broad range of personal topics not tied to the workplace. Regardless of the context, the focus is on empowering people to discover more vital ways to live and to be more intentional in the choices they make - leading to more vibrant, purposeful, fulfilling lives.
Recently, a friend asked me what I find so compelling about the coaching experience, and I found myself pondering this simple but powerful question. After some introspection, I came up with an answer that surprised me a bit: I find coaching compelling in part because it reminds me so much of rowing.
Let me explain. I was a three-sport high school athlete but really wasn’t good enough in any of those sports (soccer, track, swimming) to compete at the collegiate level. When I got to campus freshman year, I walked on to the freshman lightweight crew and never looked back. Rowing became a formative, meaningful part of my college experience, and I am still very close to many of my teammates and coaches 40 years later. But what does that have to do with professional and personal coaching? I believe there are five important parallels between this kind of coachin and rowing, starting with focus.
Focus
Anyone who has ever rowed competitively has heard some version of “eyes in the boat!” from a coach or coxswain. To row well requires a supreme focus on what’s happening in the now, and a focus on what you can control and influence. Looking over to see where the other crew is does nothing but take you out of the rhythm of your own boat. In college, the requirement to staying focused within the boat became a sort of sanctuary for me from my academic pressures. For the 1-2 hours per day I was participating in the sport, I simply could not think about school. It was a kind of active meditation.
Coaching feels the same to me. When I am working with a client, I know that being a great coach means being supremely present, attentive and available. No texts or emails, no multitasking during coaching sessions. For that hour session, it’s like I and my client are the only people on Earth. That intense focus brings me back to being on the river early in the morning, rowing with purpose and extreme attention to detail. It feels holy. Without that focus, without deep listening and observation, I am not connected mind and spirit with my client and cannot serve them the way I aspire to.
Flow
Rowers are obsessed with a concept called “swing”. It’s a feeling that is elusive and constantly sought after, a sublime melding of effort, skill and intent of everyone in the boat. When it happens, everyone in the boat knows it, and the rowing seems easier, better, and faster. If the crew loses focus, even for a second, swing is lost. Crews that train together a lot and trust each other can achieve swing more consistently than crews that are thrown together, even if they are individually talented rowers.
Coaching has parallels. Coaches are trained to “dance in this moment”, to listen intently to what the client is saying, but also to observe how the client is speaking and acting and what is not being said, and to choose when and how to respond, interject or intervene – to be very present to what is happening right now and respond to that stimulus, not to some master plan or structured checklist. When this happens, there is a state of flow between coach and client that feels, in spirit, like a boat with amazing swing. It’s effortless, effective and meaningful. Both coach and client feel very alive and engaged. There is a resonant energy that infuses the conversation and moves the coaching forward.
Self-Management and Attunement to Others
One of the challenges for novice rowers is the need to simultaneously manage oneself with the equally compelling need to be aware of all the others in the boat. There are a series of implicit or explicit questions running through a rower’s mind at all times: will I be able to row this hard for the next 4 minutes? Is my form as good as it needs to be? How motivated am I right this second? Am I making the right tradeoffs between brute force and technical skill right now? These inner voices, some allies and some saboteurs, need to be channeled to stay focused on rowing well. At the same time, rowing well requires extreme awareness of what everyone else in the boat is doing, matching their timing and form precisely so that all are moving in perfect unison. Proprioception, that sixth sense of movement and where one’s body is in space, is vital. Rowing requires keen and continuous observation of one’s crewmates, as well as attention to the coxswain’s encouragements and directions. It requires the rower to let go of his or her ego, preferences, and opinions for the collective good and be absolutely present in the moment.
I experience much the same in coaching. To really hold my client’s agenda, I need to “get out of the way” and instead immerse myself in my client’s issues, struggles and concerns. I need to give up my desire to look good or to be right; give up my own internal voices, analyses, and opinions and let the light shine on my client. This requires me to be well-trained and well-prepared, but not scripted or perfunctory. I need to self-manage the inner voices that nag at me saying “you should have asked a different question” or “the answer to this question is obvious”. I want to ensure that the questions I ask are motivated by my desire to help my client move forward, not by my need to mold the answer. This duality of inner and outer self-management feels so familiar to me because it is so present in rowing as well.
Collective Goals, Different Roles
Team rowing is always about the collective goal. Unlike most team sports, there are no individual statistics kept and no reliable way to parse out individual contributions on race day. If your bow crosses the line first, you all win. If it doesn’t, you all lose. This simple reality shapes the relationships that crewmates have with each other – these relationships are empowered by the trust required of this “we all win together” dynamic. The crew moves in unison, but each person has a subtly different role based on where they sit in the boat. In an eight-oared shell, the bowman has a different function than the stroke; the “engine room” in the middle of the boat brings slightly different skills than stern or bow. The stern pair set the cadence and lead the crew. The power exists not in the individual oarsman but in the collective trust and understanding of group goals and individual roles.
Likewise with the coaching relationship. In the most powerful, effective coaching relationships, coach and client are peers with equal, albeit different, roles. They collaborate for the benefit of the client. Both parties grant power to the relationship, through trust and a mutual understanding of the collective goal – to allow the client to take full charge of their lives and the choices they make; to live their lives more fully and vibrantly. Powerful rowing is not about being a powerful individual oarsman; it is about the power experienced by the group. Powerful coaching is likewise not about being a powerful coach; it is about the empowerment experienced and knowledge gained by the client.
Art and Science
The past 25 years has seen a sea-change in how rowing is coached and in how rowers train. Better, more scientific methods have been introduced to improve fitness, technique, strategy, and performance and to reduce chronic injuries that many rowers suffer (lower back injuries, shoulder injuries and the like). And yet it is still largely an art form, an active meditation that takes place in the heart and in the head, a mutual commitment among each member of the crew to achieve something collectively, not as individuals. And all the training one does prior to a race get sublimated during the actual racing event, where instinct, desire, drive and connection to one’s boatmates are more present and more impactful than the specifics of one’s training.
Coaching feels much the same to me. As professional coaches, we learn techniques, approaches, tools, and behavioral frameworks (the “science”), which can inform the way we interact with and allow room for our clients to productively explore ways to grow and transform. But during the actual coaching session, the most important thing is being in the moment with one’s client – listening and observing intently, connecting intellectually and emotionally, and “dancing in the moment” with them. This is the “art” of great coaching.
While I hop in a boat only once or twice a year these days, I now feel connected to the sport, and to something important deep within me, by way of my coaching. I hope that feeling never goes away.