I'm sure I'll continue it with other thoughts soon, but for now I'm wrapping up the series on highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students with a review of the major point from it, particularly on 360-degree feedback reports. First, I commend Columbia for offering coaching to all MBA candidates. When I went there we got the reports and reviewed them overall in class but didn't get personalized coaching. Giving them coaching adds tremendously to understanding the feedback process, how to read the reports, and how to use them to improve their leadership skills. Especially for students who don't choose the big corporate route, many students have few other opportunities to get such reports or coaching. Overall understanding The structure alone of the 360-degree feedback…

[This post is part of a series on Coaching Highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] In the context of the lessons from coaching Columbia Business School students in leadership, I've mostly written about the value of 360-degree feedback processes and reports and how to use them. Their shortcomings, costs, and problems are mostly obvious, but I'll cover them anyway since I've covered so much about them. I'll include ones that don't apply to MBA candidates, despite the context here. I'll try to mention how to avoid or work around problems too. Costs First, 360-feedback reports cost a…

[This post is part of a series on Coaching Highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Learning leadership and developing leadership skills isn't like learning history or any other academic subject. Learning leadership and developing leadership skills means learning about yourself and other people, understanding your and their motivations, changing how you view the world, for starters. Well, you can learn to lead without those things, but you'll limit yourself without them. While learning math or a new language may teach you new knowledge and skills, it's hard to say they change you as a person. I learned…

[This post is part of a series on Coaching Highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Effective coaching means focusing on the client's interests and progress, not the coach's. I like working with clients, especially students where I used to go to school, so it's easy to think about my interests. But I know that in the long term, a client telling me they got out of our interaction everything they wanted and more is my greatest reward. To do that my focus has to be on them. Use the meeting structure to focus on the client This…

[This post is part of a series on Coaching Highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] If I talk about coaching, especially in limited times with very talented people, I have to talk about Feedforward. I refer to my previous post on it for a thorough description of it. It's one of the best tools for finding out what about yourself to improve and how. If you don't have access to a 360-degree feedback (almost no one does and even people who do only get them less than once per year), you can use Feedforward anyway. I'll mention…

[This post is part of a series on Coaching Highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Leaders learn and push themselves to develop personally constantly and consistently. They don't see it as a burden, just something they do. Nor do they feel compelled from outside to do it. They enjoy learning. Nor do they feel like they need to accomplish some goal. They just enjoy doing things better. At least that's what I've seen and experienced. One of the reasons stems from an effect of yesterday's post that working on one complex, long-term thing at a time --…