“I don’t know….” said Tony.
“Because it is support, Tony, and they just don’t know how to communicate with you in a way that considers your sensitivity to criticism.”
Tony was quiet.
“Tony,” Duane said, “today is Thursday. I want you to take the rest of the week off and do whatever it is you do to help you make a big decision. Then Monday we will meet and discuss your future with this company. You are capable of far better work than you are producing. If you find you are unwilling to grow up and take their communication gracefully, I’m going to let you go. I have no desire to have someone as capable as you are be this unhappy.”
Tony came in Monday with a huge smile on his face.
Duane asked him what decision he had made.
“I’m excited,” Tony said. “I never saw my own part in this. I never realized that I could reformat this. I really think you have changed my life.”
As the months and years rolled along, Tony came to Duane many more times to thank him for that fateful meeting and for changing his life. He told Duane that he was one of the most influential people in his life. This ended up being an incredibly positive experience for Tony. Learning to deal with the two critical managers had, in fact, provided him with a great service. It helped him grow up.
* * *
The thing we surrender to becomes our power.
—Ernest Holmes
* * *
Do people really change?
I get that question all the time in my leadership seminars. But asking the question itself betrays a lack of understanding of human nature.
People do nothing but change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. But it’s in the nature of a human being to be ever-changing. Every living thing is always changing, so why would we humans be any different?
Yet we think we are! We think people have permanent, fixed personalities that they are all stuck with. Especially in the workplace. People get labeled early on and are dealt with based on the label. This is a mistake.
Can you coach another person so that the person really changes?
We saw how Duane coached Tony. That’s one example that confirms it can be done, but let’s look at another example. Let’s look at the example of me. Let’s examine the notion that people never change through the sample of this one life of mine.
If you saw a man who used to be drunk most of the time—a young man whose life was nothing much more than lying, cheating, stealing, drug-taking, drinking, and running up a massive debt—you would have a hard time trusting, or even liking, that man. But what if you saw that same man today and he had not had a drink or drug in 26 years, was happy and healthy with a wonderful family and fulfilling successful career dedicated to helping other people? Would you call that a change?
Every person on the planet today who has transformed from the low, suicidal life of addiction to a new life of spirit, service, and health—and there are millions of them!—has more than “changed.” They have become someone else. They have become their potential.
And, in most cases, they have been coached.
Sometimes coaching takes on the form of parenting. Sometimes it shows up as 12-step sponsorship, and sometimes it is just sharing an idea with a friend. But one thing is certain: people can change—and coaching can accelerate that change.
My first sponsor in my 12-step program coached me from the living suicide of drinking and addiction to higher levels of life than I ever dreamed possible. We worked with a book (most coaches are very intimate with transformative books) and we charted a new path for my life.
Once I’d reached a (blessed) level of clarity and sobriety, my mind was open to even more coaching from books and then from more mentors. (Spiritual growth has no upper limit. Just when you think you’re as happy as a person can be, it gets better.) The coaching I received took me from abject financial disaster to a successful professional career.