Interview with:J. Mike Smith [jmikesmith]
COACH
 | What types of coaching do you do? Who are your clients? I work as an executive, career and leadership team coach.
The exec and career coaching part of my practice is with senior managers: typically vice presidents, their direct reports, the occasional CEO or COO, and people who aspire work at that organizational level. My team coaching is split between work with start-up teams, and work with more established organization's leadership teams.
I also work as group off-site facilitator.
Client companies range from small start-ups to large established organizations. By name, some of my client companies include Genentech, Asia Alternatives LLC, Gilead Sciences, Cypress Semiconductors, Visa, Inc., Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Synopsys, Inc. and a number of early stage venture capital-backed portfolio companies. |
| Can you provide a link to a site where we can get to know more about you, the type of work you do and/or the place where you do it? |
| How did you get into coaching? It seems like in one way or another I've been coaching my entire life.
I have spent over 30 years working inside and outside corporations and other organizations: the singular threads have been coaching managers, and coaching teams. It took the birth of my son in 2002 to make me finally realize that I could combine something that I'm really good at (exec and team coaching) with a desire to have a more family friendly work schedule.
I took my part-time practice that I started in 1996 full-time in 2006 and have been lucky to enjoy clients who have gotten great results, and to have really enjoyed the work. |
| Do you have innate qualities, or is it something that you learned? I don't believe that it's necessarily anything that I have that's innate: as a fan of Carol Dweck's work, good performance is mostly in the doing, the practicing, and the trying.
Things that set me apart from others perhaps is that I recognize patterns of behavior quickly, and can connect the proverbial dots well. As a behavioralist, the feedback that clients get is laser sharp, as is the ability to generate and coach to alternative, more effective behaviors.
Last, in the form of personal temperament, I'm easy going, perseverant, and straightforward. Earnest is a very good word to use about me. |
| Can you describe briefly the technique or methodology you use? I developed my first competency based assessment and selection process in 1978 while I was on the staff and faculty of the University of Southern California, and am also fortunate to have worked with and been trained by people like Jack Hawley and Ed Yager.
My approach with exec coaching is to focus on the behaviors that people use in their work performance, and to combine that observation with data collection from others (seniors, peers, juniors, clients, and vendors) to determine what works well and where significant performance boost can occur.
The methodology is highly organic: the material that gets used is all the clients. Rather than use psychological assessments or tests, which I believe are suggestive at best, I'm most interested in getting direct data about the client, and data that the client can utilize to get quick, durable results.
For my team coaching work, I've been heavily influenced by the work of Douglas Smith and Jon Katzenbach and have developed a proprietary approached called "Road Trip" which helps teams focus on their goals, clarify their deliverables and milestones, understand their roles and responsibilities, and develop the way they're going to choose to work effectively with one another. |
| When the coach is confused or lost, where does he/she find a guide? Coaches are not paid to get confused or lost. Decent design, which includes gathering relevant data from or about the individual or team, is a first, good start.
When that movement of confusion does occur, it also helps to be able to take a break, and clarify where it is you need or want to go, and figure out how to get there.
Last, a little faith in good process is not such a bad thing. Sometimes a detour through some confusion or being lost actually keeps you on the right path. |
| What must the person you are helping contribute? A consistent willingness to try. There's a Richard Stine card with something to the effect of saying "The trouble is, you can't find out until you jump right in."
Work with clients can be like that: in order for them to improve their performance, or even sustain it, they must try different behaviors from the ones that got them where they are. Trying, and trying again, is what separates clients with great results from those clients who barely budge. |
| What motivates someone to work more efficiently? My experience is that everyone wants to do better: working efficiently (as contrasted with effectively) is just half the battle.
What motivates anyone to work more effectively and efficiently is the opportunity to accomplish more while doing less. To me that's an appealing formula for just about everybody I know. |
| How do you work on the emotional plane? I do but the focus of my work is on behaviors. The corporate world and work place does not have the time, nor patience for the type of results that some can achieve from longer term psychotherapy. I would also suggest that working primarily on the emotional plane is frequently inappropriate in such setting.
So while I honor, recognize, and support emotions, I'm more interested and much more focused on the behaviors that will drive enhanced or different results for the client. |
| Can positive thinking can be developed into a habit? Positive thinking - the sense of I can try this, try this, and keep trying this, can be developed into a discipline just as easy as how you shave your face (for males, right side or left?) or any other behavior.
The research behind some behavior by people like Angela Duckworth, for example, is pretty suggestive that perseverance - another way to label positive thinking - can be formed and developed, |
| How does one learn to listen? A former favorite boss Hubie McMorrow had one of those corny sayings that worked: God gave us two ears, one mouth - try listening twice as long as you speak when you meet someone.
Listening in part is learning to let go, to be curious and interested in the speaker's story, rather than prepping solely for what you're going to say when they're done. |
| How do you define the concept commitment? What importance does it have in the development of a person? Commitment is doing what you say you're going to do, and when you say you're going to do it. One of the qualities of trust - an essential element to building and maintaining productive relationships - is dependability. Commitment is the little engine of dependability: without it nothing happens. |
| Both of the following are necessary, but how are dreaming and realism balanced? Dreaming and realism are not an "either" "or": they're a "both" and a "and".
They get balanced by figuring out if you can put things to dream about into operational action. |
| Is it necessary at times to reorient a person’s desires and expectations? Only to the degree it's necessary to change or strengthen behaviors. We frequently expect and demand too little of ourselves and others so to that point it's important to figure out what those desires and expectations should be. |
| Discipline and creativity: are they two forces in opposition, or are they complementary? Discipline and creativity are complementary. My experience is that a little rigor - another way of thinking about discipline - can go along way in setting a foundation to enable your creativity to flourish. |
| What are your personal relationships like with the people you work with? Those personal relationships span a broad spectrum: some clients have become quite good friends, and others have stayed as professional colleagues. Funny, but I'm in touch in one way or the other with almost everyone with whom I've worked. |
| What is usually the main obstacle your clients face? The main obstacle is the one anyone trying to do self-diagnosis faces: it's tough to see the forest for the trees sometimes when you're in the middle of it. Having a good coach who can help you see patterns, connections, and options is priceless. |
| How do you know if a challenge is the right one for a person? I know that challenge is the right one for a person if a) there's interest pointing to commitment on the part of the client to try it, and b) there's some reasonable pathway that you can see happening that will cause the person to succeed. You don't need an even playing field to succeed, but it helps to have at least a field you can play on. |
| When the coach is confused or lost, where does he/she find a guide? Who is the coach of the coach? Coaches get paid to avoid getting lost.
And if you've done decent process design work - know where you're going, how you're going to get there, know the milestones and deliverables, and have a good sense of the abilities of the client and you as the coach, getting lost shouldn't happen. If it does, that decent design work will help you find your way: the value of good process is that you can trust it. |
| Can an excess of self-esteem be the worst obstacle? Self-esteem, which can blur into narcissism, is eventually debilitating to the client as it is to those around her/him. Self-entitlement, and a lack of perseverance are right up there also in terms of tough obstacles to confront.
But I'd also add that a good sense of self is healthy: that sense that says you have worth, you have things to contribute, and if you try, try, and try you'll do fine. |
| How do you recommend selecting a coach? Should it be someone who has followed the path that he/she wants to? Should it be someone they admire? Find someone who has a grounded methodology of coaching that makes sense for you, and with a fair amount successful experience using that methodology for their clients.
It also helps to work with someone that you like: you'll be spending a fair amount of time with your coach so make sure it's not someone you dread seeing.
Last, I'd recommend finding a coaching that can work with both heart, humor, and a cool mind. You want a coach who is keenly interested in having you as a client succeed - not someone who is punching another engagement tab in the client belt. |
| If someone wants to initiate a self-transformation, what general advice would you give him/her? Figure out what you want to be, and get some decent data on the types of skills, abilities needed to be there, and the type of commitment, resources, patience, time, and effort to get there.
In looking at those two data points you can figure out if it's viable, and if - in the greater scheme of things, assuming it's possible or probably - if it's a journey you're willing to take. |
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J. Mike Smith
San Francisco, California USA
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