Captain Hindsight – Cliff Notes for Coaching – Speed

What I’ve learning (and wish I had known in hindsight) about being a good coach is:

Speed:

Going at a conversational pace is key. Pause. Breath. Give them space to process and ask questions.

Avoid talking like you’re reading the script to a Gilmore Girls episode.

Stick to small doses of knowledge transfer.

A firehose brain dump is not helpful. You are not a professor. This is not an Academy Award speech. Yes, it makes you look smart to ramble on at breakneck speed for 10 minutes, but the person you are coaching will drown in information.

Don’t make promises. Accept that you may not be able to cover all the topics they asked for in one session.

It is better to have the person you are coaching fully grasp half of the topics, than rush to get through them all.

This is the first of five ‘captain hindsight’ blog posts about things I wish I knew when I started coaching. Click here to read the other four posts in the blog series.