Day 521: Easier to Coach than to Learn?

One of the things I do in my job is coaching. I coach people in different ways to accomplish different things - from visual management and organization to personal development and everything in between. One recent session was about helping people focus on how to manage upwards. It was in the context of the Gallup 12 - a set of twelve questions used to assess employee engagement (I wrote about it before, here). I asked everyone to look at the twelve questions and think about which ones were truly the responsibility of the organization and which had the potential for influence and action by the employee - that is, put effort where you have the ability to affect the outcome.

After the session, I decided to do the same exercise myself. And I was pretty surprised to see that in a lot of areas, I was doing a terrible job of actually taking action. Why was that? I knew the philosophy, the theory, the how-to, yet wasn't even doing it myself. Was it time or lack thereof? I don't think so. Was it desire or perceived need? This might be closer to the truth. 

It's funny how sometimes we don't take our own best advice. I live near a major hospital and am still baffled when I see doctors or nurses outside smoking. You'd think they would be leading by example, or at least doing right by themselves based on their knowledge and experience. I spend so much time and energy trying to grow or shape my career, my skills, but I completely missed this aspect of it - that for as much as I think I am doing a good job as a coach to those I coach, I am completely far less effective at coaching myself. 

It may be the hazard of the job. 

AMac