Coach, Heal Thyself

When Sharon Pearson lost five personal assistants in the first year of running her startup business, The Coaching Institute, she knew there was nobody to blame but herself.  She says: "I went through PAs like a dime a dozen because I was so bad at managing people." It was a paradox for an organisation that should have been getting people management right.

The PAs didn't walk because Sharon was a bellowing bully. Quite the opposite. She wanted to collaborate, vision-build and be liked by them. And why not? Such warm interpersonal bonding had helped to make her very successful as a life coach. But her PAs had not signed on for life coaching. They were young women who expected and wanted clear directions and deadlines. Sharon says: "It was a huge challenge because I was so used to asking questions and asking permission, which is what you do with coaching clients. The PAs were frustrated by my style and left."

Sharon had to apply her coaching principles of honesty and taking personal responsibility for results and failures to herself. Yes, she was a gifted coach, but she also had a lot to learn about managing a team and building an organisation.

The Challenge

To move from being a home-based life coach to being an effective leader, manager and communicator in a rapidly growing business.

The Solution

Sharon's first step towards creating a sustainable business was to acknowledge her shortcomings as a manager. "As staff were leaving, kind friends and colleagues would say: ‘They're just not up to the job' or ‘They're not the right person'. But I knew that I had to take responsibility for what was happening in my organisation. The buck stopped with me."

Although Sharon knew that she had to take responsibility for the situation, she did not know how to do it differently. "Nobody ever told me that you can lead and direct people. I didn't know that. I thought I would  be the best manager in the world  ... and yet here I was on my own doing everything."

Sharon took a crash self-education course on management, reading business books and magazines and listening to leadership CDs. Her top reads include Michael Gerber's The E-Myth Revisited ("get over trying to be an expert at everything") and Brad Sugars' Instant Cashflow ("this is a sales business not a coaching business"). She also talked a lot with her husband, John Pearson, who runs various businesses. He told her to manage people with the goal of helping them achieve their best rather than being liked and having fun with them.

In 2005, she spent $24,000 to employ a business coach, Ashley Thompson of Action International Coaching. He helped to set up structures and systems and provided the template for an operations manual. This enabled her to delegate efficiently and replace herself in most of the roles she had done herself. She now pays a $500/week retainer to Ashley for on-call advice, mentoring and weekly face-to-face meetings.

The turning point came when Sharon started telling  people what she wanted them to do rather than workshopping every move. "My company exploded when people knew what was expected of them and they knew what kind of feedback they were going to get from me to help them achieve their goals ... I needed to learn the ratios of feedback. For most people, it's 4:1 - four positives strokes for one ‘What you need to do to improve in this area is ...' You have to learn to read what people need. For one person I work with, it's 7:1; for another it's 2:1."

The Result

Sharon has replaced herself in all roles except delivery of the diploma program - and she is working on that. Turnover has increased from $296,000 in 2004-05 to $2.2 million in 2006-07.

The company won both the 2006 Telstra micro business award for Victoria and the 2006 Port Phillip Business Awards for innovation.

The Coaching Institute was the first to offer an accredited Diploma of Life Coaching in Australia. Graduates and students can purchase a franchise to use the TCI brand and systems.

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