Keeping Long-Term Objectives in Sight
La version française de cet article est disponible ici.
As winter was drawing to a close, I started to consider the parallels between skiing and coaching. I realised that analysing my favourite sport could offer an effective way of helping others — even non-skiers — to better understand certain aspects of coaching, a profession that remains misunderstood by many. This article is part of that series (you can read the introduction here).
Although no analogy is perfect, considering the work of a ski instructor can be helpful for understanding certain aspects of executive coaching and the reasons behind its effectiveness. Today, I focus on managing short-term and long-term objectives in parallel.
When skiing, the principal short-term objective is straightforward: get to the bottom of the piste, ideally without falling. The issue is that this objective tends to monopolise our attention, especially if stress levels are high due to the difficulty of the piste or poor weather conditions. When this short-term objective tends to absorb all of our energy and attention, we put off working on our form until the next run. The pattern repeats, and we stagnate.
The same phenomenon can play out at work. Many of us feel like we are constantly putting out fires, and the urgency of these short-term objectives take on an oversized role in our consciousness. As a result, we repeatedly tell ourselves that we’ll tend to the long-term objectives when:
things finally calm down;
we’ll have more time;
we are less stressed…
Unfortunately, that day will probably never arrive, because as soon as we deal with one emergency, another one is waiting around the corner.
Back to the ski instructor. He helped me to avoid the trap of short-term-ism in two ways. First, his external view point allowed him to stay focused on my long-term objectives even when anxiety or fear prevented me from doing so. He was there to remind me about the technical aspects of skiing that I was meant to be working on, regardless of the temptation to let that go during the most stressful moments. Second, his presence forced me to keep trying my hardest even when fatigue or laziness might tempt me to take it easy.
In a similar way, one way a coach assists clients is by helping them stay focused on their long-term objectives, so that they are constantly working towards these goals. Because the coach is external to their clients’ work environments, the coach will not get distracted by the everyday pressures of the client’s work. In this way, the executive coach can offer a calm, considered, neutral perspective when high stress has a tendency to distort the client’s analysis. Thanks to this external viewpoint, short-term necessities are less likely to make their client stray from the path leading to their overarching professional goals.
What might you achieve if you worked with someone who helped you to refine and stay focused on your professional goals? Are you curious to know more about the way I work? Click here to get in touch, and here to find more information about my background and qualifications.