Are Business and Sport really different?

At conferences and meetings, one of the topics in which you (customer insight leaders) seem particularly interested is leadership coaching. Once it’s been mentioned in a presentation, that is the most likely topic for me to be asked about in the next break. A few of the points that I’ve made on this are:

• Coaching does work (over 90% of UK companies now use coaching and the academic evidence for efficacy has grown hugely);
• Customer Insight Leaders would benefit as well (progressive companies are extending beyond CEO to all directors & key leaders);
• It is for winners not losers (don’t think what’s wrong that they need a coach, think elite athletes use coaches to sustain peak performance);
• Take care choosing a coach (a recent useful article in EDGE magazine gave a 10 point checklist of things to consider, including qualification and membership of professional body).

Given that message, I was encouraged to see a friend of mine at Abelard Consultancy also blog on what business can learn from sport, especially the importance of goal setting. So, here’s another “other”  guest content:

From my experience, customer insight leaders and other executives can really benefit from the use of goal-orientated performance coaching, to set such goals and consistently achieve them.