National Post: Why Every CEO Needs A Coach
By admin
July 5th, 2009 • Related • Filed Under
July 4, 2009 – National Post – Toronto, Ontario, Canada
In executive coach John Agno’s blog article, Why Every CEO Needs a Coach, he argues that “every CEO is ‘on the stage’ for the majority of his or her work life but needs pre-performance quiet and confidential time to be creative, bounce their ideas off someone in a same environment and explore the unintended consequences of future actions.” Agno goes on to quote Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google, who said that his best advice to new CEOs was “have a coach.” Schmidt goes on to say “once I realized I could trust him (the coach) and that he could help me with perspective, I decided this was a great idea…” Read story.
Comment by Billy C H Teoh on 6 July 2009:
It is important and ethical to acknowledge original thoughts, works, and sources of related information; wherever & whenever sharing one’s views, perspectives, and ideas especially if they are explicitly & implicitly evident and known (there should be no reason not to, am I right?).
I often give the benefit of doubt (because sometimes we as writers may inadvertently not acknowledge, although that does not excuse us from being not responsible and accountable, if the information does has negative impact) to the writer as long as the ‘contents’ are generally beneficial, and also as long as there are not much out-of-the-world claims (perhaps because of my strong belief that most ideas are ‘improvements’ from other peoples’ ideas and that very few ideas are truly of original thoughts, unless the thoughts are results out of original scientific/evidence/fact-finding processes).
I also read the whole piece of the ‘contents’ to ascertain ‘intent & motive’(as long as I do not perceive the writing as to commercialize, or to claim credit where one does not deserve, or having malicious intent, claims, and inaccuracies; it should be OK).
My evaluation of any writing is: “Does the writing provides me insights and ‘aha moments’ that I am previously unaware of, or ideas where I can improve further on what I already know?”
I prefer not to evaluate the writer’s intent and claims (most of the time), but to be more focus on the writing itself.
What would be ethically considered as right, appropriate, and tolerable?
Meta-cheerio.
Billy C H Teoh
Malaysia.
Comment by Linda Ballew on 5 July 2009:
Fran, thanks for your insightful comments.
With your permission, we will forward a copy of them to Ray Williams at the National Post. Your observations make it clear that we need to add a disclaimer that Coaching Observer posts are NOT our original reporting and we do not assume responsibility for the content of these stories. We aggregate coverage of coaching as a service to our readers, with stories reproduced exactly as we found them on the web, with the original source clearly included at the top of each story.
Sadly, it would be impractical for us to fact-check and source everyone else’s reporting.
Please, continue to let us know whenever you see something on this site that needs to be addressed – we are eager to be accurate and complete, and your comments have been most helpful.
Comment by Fran Dutton on 5 July 2009:
This is a great story using quotes from well-known CEOs. Everything in the story is true and accurate. Except one thing. Attribution. This story is a good example of losing accuracy in where this story appeared and who actually reported these quotes.
I’m a little surprised that with the new emphasis on journalism at the Coaching Commons some fact checking about origins was not part of the story process. My comment doesn’t diminish the value of what was said about coaching or who said what. It’s just that the article quoted (by Ray Williams) is not cited, and in the blog quoted in Ray’s story by John Agno, doesn’t indicate the original source (Fortune/CNN Money) and the reporter who actually did the work to put this story together in the first place.