When Should You NOT Work with a Coach?
If you’re already familiar with me and my work, you know that I’m a product leadership coach. And if not, hi, I’m Petra. It’s nice to meet you!
Now that we’ve gotten the introductions out of the way, I’d like to dive into a topic that I find super interesting to address as a coach: When is coaching NOT a good idea for you or your team? By the way, thank you to John Cutler for sparking the idea for this post when interviewing me for The Beautiful Mess podcast. You can listen to that episode here.
The way I see it, there are a few situations when coaching is probably not the best option: when you need to build basic knowledge or skills, when you aren’t willing or able to make time for it, when you haven’t made a commitment to the process, and when you’re not sure if you need an agile coach or a product coach. Let’s take a closer look at each one.
When you need to build basic knowledge or skills
In the situations when you’re lacking basic skills or knowledge, there are countless options available to you. You can read books, watch talks, listen to podcasts, or maybe even go through some sort of self-paced training or course to learn on your own. Not only are these options cheaper and easier than coaching, but they’re a better use of your time.
Imagine someone who has never played tennis in their life hiring a coach who typically works with professional athletes. While I won’t say that it’s a complete waste of time for both parties, I do believe that both the coachee and coach would be better served (Get it? Served? Tennis?) in a different arrangement. Someone who coaches professional athletes has different knowledge and skill sets than someone who teaches beginners—and they’re not putting their skills to the best use when they have to teach the basics.
For more on this topic, be sure to check out my post on the “Learning Menu” concept.
When you aren’t willing or able to make time for it
Coaching requires a big time investment. It’s not only the hours you spend with your coach—you should be ready to dedicate time outside of your coaching calls to doing homework or prep work. In most cases, this involves working on the action items you’ve created for yourself during your sessions with your coach. By the way, you can learn more about this in How to Make the Most of Your Coaching Sessions.
If you know that you won’t be able to make it to your regular calls or you won’t have additional time to complete your homework or prep, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Remember the hypothetical tennis coach from earlier? Imagine one of their pro player coachees tells them they only want to show up for matches but don’t have time to do any practice or training. Do you think that would lead to the player winning many matches? Unlikely. This is the same idea. You have to be ready to put in the hours to enjoy the benefits of working with a coach.
When you haven’t made a commitment to the process
I sometimes come across an unfortunate situation when a company decides to offer coaching to ten random people at their organization and it’s just a matter of people raising their hand to say they want to participate without fully understanding what they’re committing to. Don’t get me wrong—it’s wonderful that companies want to offer coaching for their employees. But if they just open up a set number of spots and let random people take them, they’re not being as strategic as they could (and should) be with such an investment.
When companies offer coaching to a broad set of employees without considering if they’re truly ready for the commitment, they overlook the dedication, effort, and vulnerability that’s required to benefit from a coaching program.
Effective coaching requires time, a willingness to try new approaches, and a commitment to personal growth. Simply nominating employees without assessing their readiness often leads to suboptimal results as the individuals may not fully engage with the process or understand the true nature of the commitment.
In my experience, when coachees are just a random assortment of employees, they’re less likely to fully understand what they’ve signed up for. And as a result, they’re not as willing to be open and vulnerable. In these cases, I don’t feel that I can bring the value I’d like to these organizations.
When you’re not sure if you need an agile coach or a product coach
I understand that the cost of hiring an external coach is high, and the macroeconomic climate and company budget may be uncertain. In these situations, it can be tempting to look inward for cost-saving alternatives. If you already have agile coaches in your organization, you might think you can simply ask them to step in as product coaches. They already work for you, and the word “coach” is right there in their name!
However, agile coaches and product coaches are NOT interchangeable. I’ve covered this topic at length in Why Agile Coaches Can’t Be Product Coaches, but here’s a quick overview: Product management involves balancing discovery and delivery. Agile coaches tend to focus on the area where they feel comfortable, delivery. And they often do so at the expense of discovery. Plus, unless they’ve worked as a product manager themselves, they’re often lacking in areas like product strategy, business case analysis, forecasting, and product-led growth tactics.
Now you may be thinking: Fine, Petra. You’ve made your point about when not to work with a coach. But when does it make sense to work with one? This is a topic I’ve previously covered in How to Decide What Type of Product Coach Is Right for You. Here’s the abbreviated version: Coaching is the right choice when you’re on a mission, you need some out-of-the-box thinking, you’re feeling stuck, or you need someone to ask you the right questions.
And, of course, if you are interested in working together, you can learn more about my coaching packages here.