Ask HN: Have you used an Executive Coach to build people skills?  Care to share? - mapster
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lucozade
I found it very worthwhile. My manager at the time recommended someone who had
helped him.

The main, direct improvement she made was with my communication style. I had a
tendency to explain things. OK, waffle. She helped me make it more punchy,
keep the audience with me. Has worked well.

The most interesting, and affecting, exercise was soliciting feedback on how I
come across. From family, close friends and work colleagues (senior, peers and
juniors). And then interviewing them about it. Not sure it made me change
anything but it affected profoundly how I saw myself.

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analogwzrd
Yes, though it started off with trying to help me figure out how to deal with
perfectionism and my relationship with my job.

We eventually got into building people skills. There were active listening
skills, some mental models to help find common ground, and we talked about bad
assumptions to make versus good assumptions. For example, it's usually good to
assume that your co-workers don't have bad intentions.

Are you trying to find out if it was worth it?

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askafriend
Could you expand on how much sessions typically cost you and how valuable you
found coaching like that to be over alternative methods of learning similar
skills?

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analogwzrd
My company was paying for the sessions, so I never saw the bill. It also
helped that I work for a company large enough to have their own internal
executive coaches. However, this particular EC has since left the company to
start his own EC consulting business.

I found it very valuable. As with any kind of coaching, you could try to work
through issues on your own, but it might take you awhile. With a coach,
they're there to call you out when you try making excuses and keep you honest.
Also, I found that saying and talking about things out loud has a much bigger
impact and weight than just thinking them to yourself.

It also helped that this particular EC had worked for about 10 years as a
software engineer at my company. When I described work situations and
problems, he understand exactly what I was talking because he understood some
of the political dynamics of our company and technical language I was using.

~~~
askafriend
Forgot to thank you for your response! Really appreciate it - it's super
helpful.

