Gentlemen, This One's For You

The word "coaching" is very appealing, especially to men. It allows them to access basic psychological principles in a way that's socially acceptable. You begin talking about work and that's the place where most men feel competent or at least comfortable. At some point, the coach then begins to ask about work-life balance and that acts as a bridge into the personal life.

Coaching is not the same a therapy. One is an open-ended exploration of the origins of emotional makeup; the other is usually short-term and focused on achieving concrete goals, often in the context of career. You don't have to get in touch with your feelings; instead you are taught how to manage them. Typically men prefer this approach as it enables them to concentrate on such things as emotional intelligence, better relationship management skills and a more successful personal style.

People often trace their personal style at work back to their family of origin and even back to some defining crisis, i.e., throwing one's self into their job to overcome the loss of a loved one. Career or life coaching effectively induces changes that usually move from the person's work life into their private life. Nine out of 10 times the side effects from coaching is improved personal relations at home.

Coaching began its growth in the 1990's with the surging growth of Internet and tech companies. This happened so quickly that employees and managers had to learn social and management skills on the fly. These were the IT types who were accustomed to working by themselves, alone in a room. Then, suddenly, they're managing people and know absolutely nothing about human dynamics.

Asking for help, showing weakness, admitting you have no control and revealing yourself to a stranger just aren’t things guys are taught how to do. By and large, these are not the men who seek solutions on the couch. Therapy itself is antithetical to everything it is to be male in this society. This is why coaching is so appealing to men. After all, it was Michael Jordan who once remarked, "A coach is someone who makes you do what you don't want to do in order to be what you want to be". If a great natural athlete like Michael Jordan can benefit from coaching, perhaps coaching will continue to provide needed support for performance improvement in more executive suites as well.