Executive coach: what role do they play in a company’s success?

Here's #AMatrixMoment with our take on the role of an executive coach, tune in to find out.

Salonie:

What is the role of an executive coach and would you recommend that early-stage founders work with one?

Avnish:

i think there is a role and i think in india we really underestimate the importance of these things.

i think our founders have not yet fully internalized how much coaches can help. We had in another discussion we were talking about the different stages of an entrepreneur and how you go from hacking in the jungle to flying a plane and how it’s difficult. See the reality is, by the way, this is only relevant post-product-market fit for companies and when companies are thinking about scaling. See the reality is i think being a founder is almost always wartime and therefore all founders including myself have generally worn it as a badge of honor, right. But at some stages when you’re trying to scale a company you do need to think like a peacetime.

So if you are not that person- we had discussed there was another A Matrix Moment we did. Should we get a CEO, don’t get a CEO, get a coach, get a peace time coach and look at we should include a link to this book of called Trillion-Dollar Coach which is about Bill Campbell. Eric Schmidt had a coach. Larry & Sergey of Google got Eric Schmidt as a coach, then he got a coach which was Bill Campbell. Steve Jobs had a coach, so i mean if these guys who are the ultimate and notice all of them are wartime founders. So, if these guys can have it you know why not, why not us.

So, i think i think it is very important. i think it complements our wartime founder with a peace time kind of a persona which is great for the organization, but i also believe that the coach should not be just a "gyani’’, right? Should not be somebody just giving advice. There should be some accountability and i would love to see coaches who actually come on the boards of companies, like Bill Campbell and he was, he took accountability for some decisions so i think it would be great to actually have a coach who is different than just a concept of a mentor and is involved in the business, is involved in the decision making, takes some kind of joint responsibility not necessarily to the board but at least morally on the success of the founder and the company.

Salonie:

Got it

Salonie:

Thanks for tuning in. For more Matrix Moments episodes, you can head to www.matrixpartners.in/blog. You can also follow us on Twitter, Linkedin, and YouTube for more updates.