A Lesson in Coaching

Some of the best advice I ever received was from my 8th grade math teacher. Mr. G. told my class to absorb everything you can from people with experience, whether it be your mom in the kitchen, your coworkers on your first job or your teacher in math class.

One of the best parts about being an intern is that you get to work everyday with seasoned professionals. Each day you have the oppurtunity to draw from the knowledge and skills your coworkers have gained over years of experience.

Today, I attended my first client meeting with our executive vice president and COO, Lauren. It was a message coaching session, which means we helped our client develop a key message map to guide all of its communications, whether it be a conversation at a cocktail party, a press release for the media or a speech at a gala event.

It was amazing to see how Lauren pulled together everyone's ideas. To help the client's representatives explain their organization's culutre, she asked them to describe it as though the organization were a human being. That request spawned so many ideas-- it was like magic. Of course, I took pages of notes, trying to absorb everything I could about how she ran meeting, got everyone thinking and drew it together in the end.