Trusting an Outsider

There are times in our work that we encounter a highly successful professional who has a history of keeping things very close to the vest.  Their trust of outsiders who don’t “know our business” is low, making a coaching engagement with them a very uncertain endeavor.

What is this lack of trust all about?  Often it is a belief that being a “self-made man (or woman)” means that I did it myself, without anyone else’s help.  Especially outsiders.

There are some dangers in this belief, not the least of which is that it cuts off valuable information that comes from hearing a different perspective.

Benefits of Outsiders. Outsiders don’t know, can’t know, all of what goes on inside the organization.  But then, we don’t need to because an effective coach is able to:

• look past the technical business issues to find the larger performance issues that may endanger future growth,
• ask probing questions that are designed to challenge current thinking,
• create healthy discomfort; because without discomfort there is no growth.

Introduce new perspectives. Coaching is designed to introduce new perspectives.  Without new perspectives, organizations organize themselves only around what they know to be true.  They prevent themselves from discovering more effective solutions to their problems.

Developing trust with an outsider can be hard. But it is well worth the risk.  Who knows, it might mark the beginning of a valuable new friendship.