In my executive coaching practice in Montreal, many of the business issues that I discuss with my clients concern prediction. These prediction problems are rarely conceptualized as such, instead they are couched in jargon of the particular business using words such as “forecasting,” “planning” or “analysis”. However, the underlying psychological process is prediction.

For example, in the retail clothing business, senior executives and their teams make predictions at least four times a year about what fashions will be in style six months down the line. Credit teams in financial institutions make routine predictions about a potential lender’s ability to repay his or her financial obligation. Marketing executives attempt to determine the public’s response to their newly created campaigns.

Predictions are not only routine in most executive jobs, but they are also extremely important since they can be the main drivers of the company’s success or the source of an employee’s bonus.

Now here’s the sobering news from psychology. We, humans, are not very good at this type of cognitive activity. My profession of Clinical Psychologists went through this epiphany over forty years ago when a generation of dissertations tackled the following question:

Who’s better at predicting things about patients – expert clinicians or machines?

The machines were represented by statistical algorithms that used historical data to make predictions about such things as;

• which patients will improve with psychotherapy
• who is will likely get discharged earlier from the hospital

In short, which was better: clinical or statistical prediction?

Well, after numerous studies, the verdict was resounding – statistical prediction based upon tested algorithms were better than the trained experts. It was a hard pill for us psychologists to swallow but we survived and moved on.

What are the implications for business?

Firstly, recognize that prediction is tough. Research in many fields has shown that people making the predictions are notoriously over optimistic about their abilities. In fact, the more of an expert they are – the greater their certainty, but not necessarily their accuracy.

Secondly, require that business people making predictions be explicit about the decision and what is underlying their prediction. What factors did they consider? How did they weigh these factors? What things did they not consider?

At one point in my career, I was running a large department of clinical psychologists who routinely gathered at weekly Rounds to present and discuss cases. The meetings were interesting with a lively debate about the likely outcome of various therapeutic interventions. However, the meetings also reflected the old joke that two psychologists in a room yields three different opinions. In the clinical meeting, all the opinions were offered with justifiable reasons, some even citing relevant research. But, almost invariably, each proffered statement was countered by an opposing equally elegant point of view. It was like a merry-go-round, great fun, but when the music stopped everyone was exactly in the same position that they began – convinced in the rectitude of their own view.

I decided to change things by introducing a bit of reality feedback. Henceforth, at the end of the meeting, each psychologist was required to document his or her prediction in a one-page sheet that recorded the prediction and the underlying reasons, listed in terms of importance. Then, six months later the patients were presented again, and the predictions evaluated. The results of my changes were interesting. People began to be more cautious in their judgments, they began to consider more information and listen more to the ideas of others. I didn’t stay in the position long enough to see if feedback had any long-term effect on accuracy, but I suspect it did.

Here’s the bottom-line for business.

1. Recognize when you are making predictions.
2. Then ensure that people making the predictions are explicit not only about the outcome but the underlying decision-making process.
3. Finally, collect data and feedback the results in a way that employees can learn from their successes and failures.

executive coaching · prediction · psychology

A friend recently asked me about my practice in executive coaching. In particular, he wanted to know what the major mental health problems are that face the executives and professionals that I see in my practice. He had in mind the typical collection of diagnostic entities such as depression, anxiety, or perhaps more behavioural deficits, such as, perfectionism or excessive self-criticism.

I replied that my typical client has none of those things. Instead they have tons of little problems, most of them not of there own making. That’s because I view my clients not in terms of diagnostic labels but with myriad, and often impossibly difficult, challenges.

Similarly, I view my background in Psychology as providing me with a wide spectrum of tools both to conceptualize, and tackle these challenges. In short, I draw-upon psychological research to solve work problems not to “cure” executives. Psychology provides an extensive toolbox with to solve business or work problems. Let me provide you with one example.

A manager of a retail outlet wanted to send an under-performing sales person to another store to observe and learn from more experienced sales staff. In psychological terms, this type of learning is called modeling and its operation and effectiveness has been thoroughly studied in clinical psychology. Drawing upon this research, I was able to help my sales manager client in several ways. Firstly, I provided a common concept –learning through modeling- and as well as a subsequent vocabulary for his intervention. Then, I suggested several refinements including having the manager meet with the salesperson after each store visit to define in explicit terms what the inexperienced sale person learned. Research on modeling has revealed that more permanent skill acquisition occurs when the specific aspects of the desired model’s behaviour are identified and made explicit.  In addition, to aid future recall, I suggested that the manager link the observed salesman’s behaviour to the overall retail mission of the store. In psychological jargon, we were using “deeper cognitive processing” to facilitate long-term memory storage. Finally, we ensured that the sales skills observed were within the existing behavioural competency of the sales and aligned with theirown career goals.

This example of modeling provides but one small example of the richness of psychological research in providing executives with many creative and effective ways to crack the array of nuts they are presented with as daily problems.

executive coaching · Problem-solving · psychology

The role of an executive coach

A large part of my practice in executive coaching consists of providing the unique perspective of an informed outsider.

The informed part is relatively easy to define. I bring an extensive knowledge of psychology to address problems in the workplace.  Psychology is truly an impressive field that spans everything from neural science to social behaviour.  The discipline provides a precise vocabulary describing a rich array of constructs that can be used to characterize the challenges facing executives.  In any given day, I find myself finding relevancy for many psychological concepts such as impression management, operational definitions of change or  goal-setting.  In short, I can easily find application in industry for many of the psychological principles that comprised my training in clinical psychology.

The benefit of my “outsider” aspect of my perspective may not be as obvious, but I find that it is often just as valuable.  In my experience in dealing with workplace psychology, I have found that as one advances in an organization, one gains power but loses social support.

In a way, this is paradoxical since power, perks and pay all increase with organizational advancement, but not social support. The vital ability to talk to colleagues about problems and challenges diminishes with success often leaving C-level executives alone to wrestle with the problems of the company.

Consider the typical, regional sales meeting where district sales managers are held to task concerning missed sales targets by the VP of Sales.  After the particularly tough meeting, the managers can gripe over coffee during the afternoon break, the Sales VP running the meeting has less of an available audience for ventilation. Often, his or her senior executive peers are too busy with their own issues to share and compare notes. Or, more regrettably, the Sales VP is under so much pressure to achieve results, that discussion with other executives about the road-bumps to goal attainment are perceived as signs of weakness.

In addition to bringing psychological solutions to workplace problems, my role as an executive coach involves being an important, and sometimes the only, confidant. This role is especially important with sensitive topics such as succession or major organizational change where careful preliminary planning is required before the issues can be expressed more directly in the workplace.

A trusting relationship with an informed professional might be the best way to summarize the practice of executive coaching as delivered by a psychologist.

executive coaching · psychology