NOTE: As of 2022 the Center for Executive Coaching is now accredited with the ICF as a Level 2 Coach Training Organization. The ICF has changed their language and replaced ACTP with Level 2. We were among the first group of coach training programs to receive this accreditation, after a rigorous review by the ICF.

New Ideas or Old, Tried-and-True Ideas?

I had an interesting dialogue with a client who kept telling me, “That’s an okay idea, but it’s not new.”

She craved new ideas to position and grow her consulting business. “I want a single idea that changes everything, that takes my business in a new direction, that is new and that no one else is doing. You aren’t giving me any new ideas.”
(Let’s put the discussion aside of whether a coach’s job is to provide 100% new ideas.)

In this case, I asked her to take a moment and list all of the ideas she “already knew” that would grow her business.

We listed them one by one.

Then I asked her to honestly assess her commitment to and execution of those ideas.

She gave herself low scores on almost every one.

“But that’s because I want a new idea, something never done,” she insisted.

I didn’t say this at the time, but I definitely thought that many executives, especially those from academic or consulting backgrounds, often focus on getting new ideas. But they aren’t even executing tried and true ideas (ideas like making business development a top priority, or nurturing business relationships for the long term).

They prefer to be smart than be successful.

In some cases, and I suspect in this client’s case, they automatically say, “That’s not new” as a defensive mechanism to set them apart and above others. But really this pseudo-intellectual snobbery does nothing to move their business forward.

Ideas are easy. Action and effective execution are hard.

Don’t get me wrong: many executives can benefit from fresh new ideas. But not when they pursue ideas in and of themselves, so that nothing gets done.

This same client has a tendency to flit from one new idea or fad to the next. Yet her business remains flat.

If this sounds like you, then maybe you should look back at some tried and true ideas, and focus on the hard, disciplined work of taking action and getting things done effectively.

Aflac

Amazon

Ancestry

Army Corp of Engineers

Ascension Health

AT&T

Bank of America

Bechtel

Best Buy

Booz Allen

Bose

Bristol-Myers Squibb

Brown University

Capital One

Caterpillar

Charles Schwab & Co.

Children’s Hospital Colorado

Cisco

Citrix

Coca-Cola

Deloitte

Dropbox

Duke Energy

Galveston Independent School District

General Atomics

General Electric

Google

Harvard Business School

Home Depot

Inland Steel

International Red Cross

Johnson and Johnson

Kaiser-Permanente

KPMG

Laser Spine Institute

Lexis Nexis

Liberty Mututal

L’Oreal

Macy’s

Mckinsey Consulting

Merck

Microsoft

MIT

NASA

National Basketball Association (NBA)

Nike

Nissan

Nvidia

Partners Healthcare

Philips

Procter & Gamble

Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC)

Ralph Lauren

Regeneron

Rice University

Ross Stores

Russell Reynolds Associates

Schneider Electric

Shell Oil

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Stryker

The Ohio State University

Tom’s Shoes

United Nations

University of Florida

Unum

UPS

US Air Force

US Army

US Army Medical Corps

US Marines

US Navy

USAID

Valassis

VMWare

Xerox

Zappos

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