What is a performance coach, and should I have one?

In the past few years, I have been working with senior leadership of various trucking companies in the truckload sector to help them accomplish their personal and corporate goals.

As with all of you, I have had many mentors. These folks we have emulated came to us through either formally defined roles, or people we parroted because of behavioral attributes we admired and wanted to add to our personality traits, which includes family and other business leaders etc. I still reflect on these people and their contributions to my career, often feeling nostalgic and appreciative of their influence.

My journey as a coach has been deeply rewarding, not the least of which is because I have experienced firsthand the personal growth and empowerment that comes from coaching. In my previous leadership role, I was guided by a capable coach who helped me identify and address my own perceived weaknesses. This experience, rooted in trust, has empowered me to embrace my various roles in business and, most recently, as a coach, as I attempt to share what I have learned with others.

Once a person enters the mentee role, they quickly realize that they are not alone in their multiple issues; that others can relate, and that others can offer firsthand experiences that succeed. The mentor also walks a delicate line through this whole process, a fine line that guides and encourages others to find potential solutions to issues, one that one-ups the mentee’s trauma and minimizes their challenges.

My personal weakness was feeling subservient to the people I needed to be around as a small business owner. I dropped out of school at 16 and began driving a truck for my father, who had three trucks when I was 18. I could have easily stayed a driver for the next five or six decades. I often wonder how that might have played out had my dad not passed away. My Mother was gone before his passing, and now I am 23 years of age, I have three trucks, and I must figure out what to do. No Boo Hoo’s here. I’m just setting up the impact of how a good coach set me straight and cleared my head.

Fast-forward ten years and many challenges and I am now a partner, President and COO of a 250-truck fleet. There are many moving parts in this size of company, and I am putting in many hours, week after week and feeling the strain. I took on a coach and experienced two epiphanies that shaped the rest of my life, my career in trucking and beyond. My coach slowly and methodically revealed each new concept in such a way that I could comfortably absorb and believe. He also did each in a select order to mesh nicely with each other.

The performance coach quickly realized that my self-confidence was low, but my belief that success would come my way was high. He drilled into me that common sense was my driver and inner strength. That the suits that came as a necessity were not so inclined to take the risk that comes with running your own business. So, I began to look at exchanges with bankers and insurance companies in a different light. I was not so defensive; I began approaching these interactions more confidently. These interactions became much less stressful. At that time, I needed that paradigm shift and a strong boost of self-confidence, and my performance coach gave that to me.

My next epiphany came in the form of a mandatory course for all our senior managers that he recommended. It is called Management by Responsibility written by Dr. Michael Durst. It is also known as Taking Personal Responsibility in Developing Excellence: PRIDE.

The crux of the teaching was that taking responsibility for each and every exchange in your life is the only true way to move forward; corporately and individually. I have explained this concept during retention workshops over the past decade. If your company has a high turnover, you need to own it because you did everything right to set up where you are. If you allow the blame game to enter your situational analysis, you will never get on top of it. You cannot say to yourself, it’s operations’ fault, safety’s fault, recruiting’s fault! It is the destructive nature of drama that many companies cannot seem to make their way out of, they get stuck there, and there they stay.

A company can only progress towards its objectives if the entire senior management has the maturity to grasp the concept of personal responsibility. The holy grail is called the responsible level. At this point in personal development and company culture, everyone is on side to accomplish the common goal; no one is looking for bad guys when things go wrong. The workforce is laser-focused on accomplishing its objectives. I won’t go too deep into the woods on these concepts. Please leave it to say, this training changed my entire perspective on my management style, family, friendships, relationships etc.

Many would bristle at the thought that they may benefit from a coach; I can only express my experiences. Discussing business challenges and asking for feedback on potential paths forward were life changing. I hope my words help you decide if utilizing a coaching resource might benefit you and help secure your future objectives.

Leadership in any capacity can be a lonely lifestyle, but it doesn’t have to be. Many of us strive to get ourselves into these positions only to discover that they aren’t what we expected. Shakespeare wrote: “uneasy is
the head that wears the crown” in 1597. You are certainly not alone in your challenges. If you feel this way more than you would like, I suggest you may be a prime candidate for the support a performance coach could provide.

Safe Trucking

Ray Haight
519-820-1632
rayhaight.com

“Greed is wanting the benefits of community without contributing to it.”