Someone Outside the Rocket

There have been many times in my career when I thought I had the right plan.

The right idea.

All the thinking buttoned up and ready to go.

Like the countdown to a launch towards the moon, all systems were go and the clock was running.

Except this time, my thinking wasn't aboard Apollo 11 or 12.

It was aboard Apollo 13.

Everything looked ready for launch, but somewhere amongst all that planning was one small issue with the potential to become a very big one.

Fortunately for me, I had someone in my corner who was looking at the launch from a very different perspective.

I was strapped into the rocket.

He wasn't.

He was far enough away from the excitement, the detail and the months of work to see something I couldn't.

One thing.

One critical thing that wasn't quite buttoned down.

The Thing I Couldn't See

For the sake of this story, what was missing from my thinking isn't really important.

The conversation with my coach is.

We all have blind spots. Areas we cannot see — or sometimes choose not to see — for all sorts of reasons.

I learnt a long time ago that the moment I think I can see the entire playing field, I've probably already lost the game.

But this time, I genuinely thought I had covered all the bases.

I had planned.

Then I had reworked the plan.

Then I had planned some more.

This particular project had significant implications for the business. If we got it right, we would become a market leader in using technology in a way that hadn't really been done before in our market.

We had tested it.

Customers were excited about it.

The business was excited about it.

And so was I.

We were about a week away from launch.

During a coaching session, I was enthusiastically talking through everything that was about to happen. The work we'd completed. The opportunity ahead. The plan for launch.

My coach listened.

And then he asked one question.

"Do you mind if I ask, why haven't you spoken about X yet?"

Bugger.

One Question

He had landed on the very thing I didn't think I needed to talk about.

The loose end I had convinced myself wasn't loose.

Months earlier, I had mentally put a big tick next to it.

Complete.

Finished.

Nothing more to see here.

Except there was.

And suddenly, sitting across from someone who wasn't carrying months of assumptions, decisions and emotional investment in the project, I could see it too.

It was mission critical.

The launch wasn't ready.

I wasn't ready.

And the most interesting part was that my coach didn't tell me that.

He simply asked a question.

That's Coaching

There is a misconception about coaching that I think is worth challenging.

A coach isn't there because you don't know what you're doing.

They're not there to sit across from you and dispense wisdom.

And they're certainly not there to make your decisions for you.

Sometimes the value of coaching is much simpler than that.

It's having someone far enough outside your world to see what you can't.

Because experience doesn't remove blind spots.

Success doesn't remove them.

Seniority certainly doesn't remove them.

If anything, as our responsibilities grow, our assumptions can become harder to challenge.

We become surrounded by people who know the plan.

People who have worked on the plan.

People who are invested in the plan.

And sometimes people who don't feel comfortable questioning the person who created the plan.

That's when an independent perspective becomes incredibly valuable.

Not another passenger strapped into the rocket with you.

Someone standing far enough away to ask:

"Have you thought about this?"

Getting Unstuck

I've coached many people since that conversation, and one of the things I've come to appreciate is that people rarely arrive without answers.

Often, they already know far more than they realise.

Sometimes they're stuck between two options.

Sometimes they've been staring at a problem for so long that they can no longer see around it.

Sometimes they know exactly what they need to do, but something is stopping them from doing it.

And sometimes they're like I was that day.

Absolutely convinced they've thought of everything.

A good coach doesn't necessarily give you the answer.

Sometimes they help you find the question you've forgotten to ask.

That question changed the trajectory of my project.

We dealt with the issue.

We launched.

And thankfully, unlike Apollo 13, nobody had to say:

"Houston, we've had a problem."

But I came away with something more valuable than a successful launch.

A reminder that has stayed with me ever since.

No matter how experienced you become, you will never be able to see yourself from the outside.

Sometimes, you need someone standing there.

Not to tell you where to go.

But to help you see what you're missing.

And sometimes, that's all it takes to get unstuck.