Career coaching: Enlist a friend first?
My friend Miriam Weinstein first introduced me to co-coaching 30 years ago. Her car was (and probably still is) emblazoned with a "Question Authority" bumper sticker. So it was no surprise that rather than pay some pipe-smoking Ph.D. big bucks to counsel her, she asked me to form a kind of buddy system: "I'll coach you if you'll coach me."
Fact is, it worked well. So well that now, decades later, I still co-coach with a friend. We each advise the other for half an hour, once every two weeks, on a problem of our own choosing.
And when you think about it, reciprocal peer coaching makes sense:
Of course, co-coaching is more effective when you have good coaching skills, so here's a crash course. This won't make you as skilled as a professional, needless to say, but when you combine a few effective techniques with the advantage of knowing and liking your coaching partner, you and your friend may get meaningful help without having to pay a pro. And the following model works in many situations, career-related and otherwise:
Start by planning a one-hour session. In the first half-hour, one person is the coach, the other is the client. In the second half-hour, you switch roles.
Some ground rules:
If the half-hour isn't up yet, ask, "Is there another problem you'd like to take a look at?"
Then, at the half-hour mark, trade roles.
A variant on co-coaching is the "Success Team" in which three to six people meet weekly. Each member spends 15 minutes as the "client" while the others are the "coach."
Of course, in some cases, you need a pro.
Next, I'll show you how to find the right one.