Aristotle and corporate coaching: An unlikely mix?

I’m often asked at parties and business gatherings what it is exactly that I do. My work has a broad scope that makes it difficult to summarize. I trained for six years to become a psychologist, and had a career after that as a corporate executive for over fifteen years before striking out on my own. It’s hard to summarize my work for my clients in a simple sentence. The hardest thing to describe is the leadership coaching work I do. I have tried different formulations: at the end of this article is what I think is a neat sentence summarizing the work of the corporate coach.

I was reading one of my journals recently and came across some material on Aristotle and his philosophy. I’m going to suggest that Aristotle fits the bill as the first example of the work of a corporate coach. He was a simple man who served as teacher and guide to three kings, including Alexander The Great. He had to make his advice straightforward, serve it up with humility, and make sure it worked. That sounds a lot like the work of a corporate coach. So how might Aristotle sum up his role?

Let’s start with this idea: The role of the leader is to create the environment in which everyone has the opportunity to reach their full potential. This is not some new age philosophy. You want people to do their best, and to do their best they have to reach their full potential.

Aristotle isn’t talking about businesses or corporate organizations, he’s talking about the role of the leader to develop the citizens in their state, but the basic idea is the same. “Help people reach their full potential”. The bottom line is that this is as good a formulation of the role of the leader as you’re likely to see anywhere. It’s simple, it’s timeless, and it beats “people are our most important asset”.

Ok…so here’s the second big idea. Aristotle’s “clients” were the leaders and future kings of Athens and ancient Greece. He saw his role as helping them reach their full potential. What’s more, he wanted them to be able to do the same for their people. So Aristotle had a simple “three step program” to help someone reach their potential.

Step one: Help them become a person of practical wisdom. Aristotle called practical wisdom “the happy medium between two extremes”. A simple example can illustrate what he meant. I occasionally have clients who have become quite senior, but who still have time management issues. They struggle to maintain a good calendar, projects can be derailed because significant milestones are missed, and it’s harder for them than it should be to keep track of their various obligations.

To begin to correct this I help them learn about the extremes of time management, understanding what happens when too little effort is made, and the consequences of becoming overly burdened by an inflexible set of obligations. In the middle is a happy medium. Between being completely locked into a calendar or totally out of control there is a happy place where you have a simple system to prioritize obligations with enough flexibility to meet every day circumstances. If you study the fundamentals it’s easier to see the pay-offs for just the right amount of effort.

Step two: Find a good role model. Aristotle called these people phronemos. They’re not the same as a coach or teacher or mentor. They are people who have achieved success in a particular field, or practice a skill well. They provide an opportunity to study practical wisdom in practice by observing their success.
For my time management challenged clients good role models often include many of their peers and colleagues, and even some of their clients. They could certainly just passively observe how these people juggle their obligations successfully. More often I suggest they kill two birds with one stone. I recommend they approach these role models directly and asks them how they do it. My clients learn something valuable and build stronger relationships at the same time.

Step three: Learn from experience. Aristotle is no armchair philosopher. He completely believed in observation, evidence, and the role of experience. I often tell clients that “people don’t learn from experience”. What I go on to add is that people only learn from reflecting on their experience. To do anything well you need to practice, reflect on what happened, and build your learning into your next trial so that you continuously improve.

In a nutshell, these three steps are 90% of the work of the corporate coach: Help your clients see the fundamentals in a situation, point them in the direction of good role models, and get them to practice, practice, practice.