If you asked me for a report or some analysis, and I offered the data to you on a CD-ROM, you would most likely raise an eyebrow, and appropriately so.
The technology is outdated and makes no sense in today’s digital and AI-forward world.
So why are we still using outdated internal operating systems?
People come into coaching usually having been given feedback about their leadership that they don’t know how to change: leadership presence, delegation, emotional regulation, etc.
For instance, the leader who came in thinking her issue was delegation. But really, the thing that made her successful for so long – always being one step ahead and never asking for help – was now holding her back. That’s not a delegation problem. That’s a misdiagnosed identity problem running on an old O.S.
I went on a treasure hunt and unearthed nearly 10 years’ worth of client data → intake forms, pre-call forms, post-call forms, coaching exit conversations, client texts, and emails.
You know what I found?
Of the hundreds of clients I’ve coached over thousands of hours, no one ever came to coaching with the correct “diagnosis” of what they really needed to change.
They started coaching with the notion that the “problem” was external – the feedback, the team, their boss, the role, a skill gap, etc.
When they finished coaching, they realized they had the answers all along, they just couldn’t see them yet. While the specific answers are different from person to person, the overarching theme is the same: their operating system needed an update.
If this sounds familiar, where might you have misdiagnosed yourself?
