Coaches a popular solution for top level executives

Excerpted from Insider Business Journal, July 20, 2001

When an issue arises within a company that the employer or executive would like outside assistance with, business coaches are a popular solution. Most coaches specialize in a particular area of business, and have specific problem solving and consulting skills.

Jeannette Seibly, Principal of SeibCo, LLC, has been a full-time business coach at her company for nine years and has more than 20 years of experience in human resource management and business.

Seibly works with large companies from around the nation at her office in Michigan. Depending on an individual company's needs and goals, she said you might need to shop around for the right coach.

"What a business coach specializes in really depends on the individual coach," she said. "I am focused on people development: how employees work with others, how they interact with a boss, how they deal with customers, which are really interpersonal development and leadership skills. Some coaches may be specialized in marketing, finance, or any area of a business."

Though Seibly said most have a certain area they are most experienced with, your business coach should be familiar with all of the different areas that make up a business to get the most effective results."

I act as a resource for other coaches," she said. "If someone needs coaching in something like sales training, I refer them to a strategic partner that can handle that area. Sometimes they need another coach for the goals the company needs to reach."

Seibly said she gets familiar with exactly what the client needs from the beginning. "

My goals are their goals," she said. "I can do the coaching for three months, six months, however long they need, depending on what the company needs to accomplish. They give me an agenda of issues, upcoming activities, and then I listen to how they're handling things, ask questions when appropriate, and give suggestions about how to rectify something."

Whether Seibly works directly with an employee or indirectly through the supervisor is up to her client.

"It's really about what's most comfortable," she said. "Trying to impose the way things have to be isn't going to get the results you want."

The term "business coach" is widely overused, Seibly said, and can refer to any number of people with differing backgrounds, practices and styles. She said it is important to know what your business coach is best at.

"I'm not a licensed therapist, nor do I pretend to be," she said. "There are therapists who do business coaching, and coaches who are not therapists. It's important that people recognize that distinction."