How’s Your Backpack?

One of the things we talk about a lot at Broad Insights is the backpack everyone carries. Everyone has a backpack on. It’s invisible, and we certainly do our best to hide it from other people. But in that backpack, we’re carrying the burdens of life, the responsibilities we have. For instance, my wife and I have aging parents. They’re becoming weaker and in poorer health, so we’re more and more preoccupied with that. We’ve also been blessed with 5 children, so we’re still in parenting mode. Everyone has relationships to maintain, and perhaps even some fraying ones to improve. You have family concerns too, I’m sure, on various levels. And then you’ve got work and the politics you navigate every day. What wears people out is not really the work, it’s the politics! Somebody trying to make themselves look better than you, the boss who’s quite moody, a peer who’s jealous, competing priorities, etc. A lot of coaches come to business leaders and say:

• “Have you read this book?”
• “Have you tried this initiative?”
• “Let’s do this new thing!”

And of course it’s with the best intentions. It’s good information, good ideas. But really, unwittingly, what they’re doing is adding to that leader’s backpack. You wind up leaving a coaching session exhausted, discouraged because you have more to do. You think, “I knew I had problems, but it’s worse than I expected.” So what an effective coach tries to do is look at the backpack, without necessarily using those words. Yesterday, I was at lunch with someone, and I asked, “If you were giving yourself advice, what priorities should you be working on?” That was revelatory for them—they just started talking. Sometimes, people need affirmation. I’d argue that a good coach shouldn’t only affirm, but encouraging should be part of what a coach does. I think a lot of coaches are really trying too hard. They really want to add value. They really want to squeeze as much out of those moments with their clients as they can. So they’re putting pressure on themselves, and by extension, on their client. Usually, we just need to focus on 2 or 3 things. What I find is that it’s not a lack of ideas or initiatives, it’s a matter of clarity. If I’ve got a very energetic business leader and they have lots of ideas, we’ll catalogue them. That relieves some stress, and lets them know I am listening. Then we’ll go back and say, “what are the 2 or 3 things we can work on now?” People feel overwhelmed. They’ve got this backpack and the last thing they need is a friend who’s stuffing more rocks in their backpack. Let’s first pull stuff out, examine it, and figure out how we can lighten the load, as opposed to adding to it.

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–Jim Wiginton is the founder and managing partner of Broad Insights, an international business coaching firm based in Greenville, South Carolina. Jim possesses a wealth of business expertise, much of it gained as an executive for Michelin North America, Plastic Omnium, and Alfmeier Corporation. He has more than 5,000 hours of coaching experience, and a Doctorate of Business Administration from Paris School of Business.