Last week I went into my 10-year old son’s school to help out during a lesson on entrepreneurship. The feedback from Johnny (which he was keen to give me the moment he arrived home #timely) was that I spoke clearly and smiled and would “make a good business studies teacher” 😊
My initial feeling was one of relief that I hadn’t been a complete embarrassment to him (I’m all too aware that these days are numbered!). But I was also struck by how quickly he has stopped viewing me as a “lawyer”, and instead sees me as someone who “helps people in business”. He was alive for half of my 18-year legal career but has moved on very easily.
I suppose I have too. I refer to myself now and again as a “recovering lawyer”, but I do feel like the curtain has fallen on that Act (even though I still find the business of law fascinating (really!)).
At the start of a new coaching assignment, I will always ensure that my client is clear on the nature of the support I’ll be providing and the style of my approach – the so-called “contracting process” -, and it is always a nuanced discussion. But when I am asked by people I don’t know “what do you do”, and I tell them that I am an “executive coach”, invariably I am left feeling that this job description fails to capture the breadth and variety of what my work actually entails.
When working with a law firm senior associate looking to be promoted to partnership, the term holds up well (although, given my previous experience, some mentoring inevitably creeps in (with the coachee’s agreement, of course)); but this isn’t the case if I’m describing my work with a CEO contemplating the sale of their business (sounding board?) or a founder in the process of scaling up (consultant?)*. Fortunately the strapline I came up with a year ago – “Face the future with confidence and clarity” – still feels apt (no need for a rebrand anytime soon (phew)).
New executive coaches (myself included) get very hung up on questions like “what sort of coach am I?” or “who is my ideal client?”. As I contemplate the past year of self-employment, and how much I am enjoying myself, I have decided to heed some advice I received recently from a coaching mentor and banish any notions of “niche”. Instead I will continue to seek out opportunities to work with as many different clients as possible, to build with them relationships based on trust, empathy and respect, and to keep considering myself as someone who “helps people in business” (© Johnny Carlton 2021).
*I have even been called a “consigliere”!