Why the smartest and best need coaching.

If you don’t want to succeed, then don’t ask for help. I think we can all agree on that last one.

The research is out on coaching, and it works.  Doctors do not use it.

Doctors are incredibly intelligent and work harder than most, but they don’t accept experiential limitations and rarely seek coaching.Doctors, on the whole, do not seek help in career guidance unless they believe they will hear what they want.

Coaching, like studying, is best when it moves you out of a comfort zone and helps you see a new way of doing this.  “uncomfortableness” is perceived as pain.  And we will do more to avoid pain than experience joy.

It is only at the point of burnout that most physicians will entertain coaching.  It is a hard pill to swallow for most, but burnout is more painful than admitting you do not know it all.

I am a doctor, and I often want to figure it out on my own.  I don’t like asking for help or coaching.  Going it alone made me take the long road, waste many hours for little return, and start from scratch multiple times for just doing things the wrong way.

I found the errors in my ways and now am a fellow at the Institute of Coaching McLean Affiliate of Harvard University. Not only do I get coaching on how to be a better physician and leader, but I have become an even better coach for the students, residents, and colleagues with whom I work.

So what is a coach?

According to internationalcoachingcommunity.com, coaches:

• help a person change in the way they wish and helping them go in the direction they want to go.
• Support a person at every level in becoming who they want to be.
• Build awareness, empower choice and lead you to change.

And on forbes.com Coaches:

• Create a safe environment in which people see themselves more clearly;
• Identify gaps between where the client is and where the client needs or wants to be
• Ask for more intentional thought, action, and behavior changes than the client would have asked of him or herself
• Guide the building of the structure, accountability, and support necessary to ensure sustained commitment

When you are looking for application support and interview preparation, you are looking for a coach—someone you can trust to lead you in the direction you want to go.  Take your history and style and make it stand out from all the rest resulting in your interview and Job that you crave.

You might also call this developing a personal brand. A coach (consultant) coach is a valuable resource, getting you to reach new heights and seeing now paths forard, and get you to take the actions needed to meet them.

A physician coach can:

1. A coach (career consultant) provide formitive feed back, promptly and unbiased. So much of the feed back we get in work and school is often gerneric and vague.
2. Estabilish clear personal outcomes. Your clinical and administrative roles are pulling you in different direction with likely mentor giving apposing recomendations. A coach will help you focus on what best for you, based on your personal goals, and see the merit in all the advice you get, and help you apply to get the best out of you.
3. Learn the Unknowables.The coach has expertise in a given area.  You don;t know what you don;t know and Coaches can help you learn what you don;t know to get you on the right path, in patient care, administrative work, or office success.
4. Get it done. Coaches make you accountable. With out motivation you will get nothing done.A great coach will find the ways to motivate you to excel.
5. Orgainze -you are likely already organized, but have you brought that organization to your life and career goals.   Haveing a clear path to success, and focusing on th emost importnat tasks are what great coaches work with you on.
6. Surpass the competition. A coach helps you shine brighter than the rest developing ne skills, behaviors, insight and approaches to work.You develop new confidence knowing what you are doing will work, from your hard work and diligence.
7. Decrese Burnout. Coaches help you gain fulfillment in the work you do, improve your emotional tolerance, demand focus, remove the excess, and see small and large successes.The small ones keep you going to the big ones.

In 2017 Dr. Ben Lovell published “What do we know about coaching in medical education? A literature review” in the Journal of Medical Education in Review.  WHo combed though close to 1000 papers on coaching in medince, to find 21 that had real statitical results in coaching of medical students. He higilights the fact that Athletes and Musicians all have coaches.  In thouse feilds it is believed that you can always get better. Why in medicine do we stop at competent? Our licensing exams create a common denomenator, but couldn’t we all continue to be better?

THis is likely what you have seen in some of your favorite teachers. The ones who stive for more and include you in that process are some of the best teachers. Opposed to preceptors who exude sonfidence in knowing all of medicine, point out what you do not know.

YOu have likely seen simulation trainning in your career.  Depending on the degree of trainning the simlab had, they may be great at coaching.  Many of the physicins who enter a simulation as a participant often do not allow themselves to be coached, and use the session as an evaluation of themselves (and have excuses for every item they didn;t do “correctly”.

Since doctors are not primed to recieve coaching in the actual practice of medicine, it is unlikely they would look to coaching in other aspects of thier career.

Corporate businesses have been looking to professional coaching for years.  IN their work performance, and in administration.  Hospitals have moved to professional coaching for administrators to improve thier interpersoanl relationships, vision for thier departments and administration of thier employees.

Getting your CV, Personal statement or COverletter edited is a type of coaching.  Interview trainning is an obvious form of coaching.  Your coach is purely interested in you getting a better outcome, nailing your next interview and getting the job. There is a set end to this coach, just like ther was to your highschool lacrosse coach, or your tennis coach.  At the end of the season, its done.

Could you have competed in sports when you were younger with out a coach.  In little league, the kids cant get out of thier own way, often not knowing the rules of the game or the real objectives of the sport.  THe Coach opens thier eyes to actions they need to take,  , the objectives of the game, and how to have fun while playing.  In Highschool they again teach how to coninuoally improve at each level.  They show you where to improve to achive not just the objective, but to reach the best outcome possible.

Though college medical school and residency who was your coach?  Who was the person who was totally invested in your success.  Was there someone like that.  And not just a mentor, a real coach giving you one on one trainning or guidance.  This is a rare thing. And if you had someone like that you were very lucky, and likley understand the value of coaching.

Athletes frequently are quoted “I could never have done this with out my coach.”  Having someone help you foocus on your faults, flaws and failed attempts makes you better.  We, as doctors, need to accept we are not always right, and we can not do everything on our own, and look forward to a coach telling us where we are not performing our best, and how to improve.

Once you do this, you will preform better, and also have a lower risk of burnout through your career.  Learn to accept mistakes or faults as moments to improve and to learn from, rather than failures causing shame and increased anxiety .

Now that you are planning to make one of the biggiest life changes, getting a new job, why wouldnt you turn to someone who has your best outcome as thier goal.  WOrking with you to be the best at interviewing.  Not only does it land you the job, but then help you be a better interviewer as you hire new collegues and staff thorugh your career.

It is only at the point of burnout that most physicians will entertain coaching

Invest in yourself.

“Invest in yourself or no one else will – stop being afraid of what could go wrong & start getting excited about what could go right.”

– Tony Robbins

Simply put, a coach will help you become the polished MD.