Hi Michelle, Firstly I want to stress that no one in 80,000 Hours needs to feel bad because I was unimpressed with some coaching a few years ago. I honestly think you are all doing a really difficult job and doing it super well and I am super grateful for all the coaching I (and others) have received. I was not upset, just concerned, and I am sure any concerns would have been dealt with at the time.
(Also worth bearing in mind that this may have been an odd case as I know the 80K staff and in some ways it is often harder to coach people you know as there is a temptation to take shortcuts, and I think people assume I am perhaps more certain about far future stuff than I am.)
-- I have a few potentially constructive thoughts about how to do coaching well. I have included in case helpful, although slightly wary of writing these up because they are a bit basic and you are a more experienced career coach than me so do take this with a pinch of salt:
I have found it works well for me best to break the sessions into areas where I am only doing traditional coaching (mostly asking questions) and a section(s), normally at the end, where I step back from the coach role to an adviser role and give an opinion. I clearly demarcate the difference and tend to ask permission before giving my opinion and tend to caveat how they should take my advice.
Recording and listening back to sessions has been useful for me.
I do coaching for people who have different views from me about which beneficiaries count. I do exercises like asking them how much they care about 1 human or 100 pigs or humans in 100 years, and work up plans from there. (This approach could be useful to you but I expect this is less relevant as I would expect much more ethical alignment of the people you coach).
I often feel that personally being highly uncertain about which cause paths are most important is helpful to taking an open mind when coaching. This may be a consideration when hiring new coaches.
Hi Michelle, Firstly I want to stress that no one in 80,000 Hours needs to feel bad because I was unimpressed with some coaching a few years ago. I honestly think you are all doing a really difficult job and doing it super well and I am super grateful for all the coaching I (and others) have received. I was not upset, just concerned, and I am sure any concerns would have been dealt with at the time.
(Also worth bearing in mind that this may have been an odd case as I know the 80K staff and in some ways it is often harder to coach people you know as there is a temptation to take shortcuts, and I think people assume I am perhaps more certain about far future stuff than I am.)
--
I have a few potentially constructive thoughts about how to do coaching well. I have included in case helpful, although slightly wary of writing these up because they are a bit basic and you are a more experienced career coach than me so do take this with a pinch of salt:
I have found it works well for me best to break the sessions into areas where I am only doing traditional coaching (mostly asking questions) and a section(s), normally at the end, where I step back from the coach role to an adviser role and give an opinion. I clearly demarcate the difference and tend to ask permission before giving my opinion and tend to caveat how they should take my advice.
Recording and listening back to sessions has been useful for me.
I do coaching for people who have different views from me about which beneficiaries count. I do exercises like asking them how much they care about 1 human or 100 pigs or humans in 100 years, and work up plans from there. (This approach could be useful to you but I expect this is less relevant as I would expect much more ethical alignment of the people you coach).
I often feel that personally being highly uncertain about which cause paths are most important is helpful to taking an open mind when coaching. This may be a consideration when hiring new coaches.
Always happy to chat if helpful. :-)