Do you need a coach?

Do you need a coach?

Coaching as a profession has been gaining more traction in recent years but professional coaching in the business space is still a concept that is a bit nebulous and poorly understood. Linchpin People (my primary business) is planning to add coaching, team, and leadership development services to our current technology offerings and I’m perusing certification and advanced training in this space so coaching is a topic that I will be coming back to on a regular basis.

I recently stumbled across a short you video clip by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. It’s part of a video vignette series at money.cnn.com asking great and successful individuals and leaders from different walks of life about the “best advice I ever got”. The video is only about 30 seconds. Take a peek.

http://money.cnn.com/video/fortune/2009/06/19/f_ba_schmidt_google.fortune/

In case you can’t watch the video right now; Schmidt recounts some advice he was given by a senior member of the Google board when he was CEO. The board member told Eric that he ‘needed a coach’. Schmidt was a bit taken a back thinking ‘what, am I doing something wrong?’ but the advice was basically ‘no, everyone needs a coach’. Eric Schmidt became a believer and points out that a coach can offer many things to an individual including a sense of perspective and an ability to better understand how others see them.

Do you need a coach? Of course. Everyone needs a coach.

What do you think?