Mentor Coach: Sanjiv Bhatia
23rd Aug 2023
The Three Races Between the Turtle and the Hare
We all know that in the classic turtle and hare story, the turtle won because the hare fell asleep.
But did you know there were two more races between them?
After the hare lost, it was upset because it knew it could win the race if it hadn’t fallen asleep. So, it challenged the turtle to another race. The turtle agreed but with a condition: “Since I won the first race, I get to choose the next route. Deal?” The hare gladly accepted.
So after the gun went off, the hare ran non-stop, feeling very confident that it would win the race this time. However, when it was about to reach the finish line, it saw a river between it and the finish line. Unfortunately, the river had no bridge. So, it had no choice but to stop. After a while, the turtle caught up, swam across the river and won the race again.
Now the turtle became cocky and challenged the hare for the 3rd race. Reluctantly, the hare agreed.
Do you want to guess who won the 3rd race?
The turtle again.
But how?
Because the hare realised that as long as the competition ground didn’t play to its strengths, it would surely lose; therefore, it didn’t turn up. So the turtle won again.
I’ve Got a Challenge
Unlike the hare, which finally realised that he would never win in an arena where he can’t play to his strength, our coachees may not be aware of it.
Therefore, as a coach, I believe that it’s my responsibility to help them discover their strengths and weaknesses.
But herein lies my challenge.
I learn better when people tell me where/what I did wrong. Telling me where my strengths are is telling me the obvious, and so, other than making me feel good, I won’t learn much from such feedback. You can see from this that I like Simon Cowell the best among the four judges.
But I’m me, and I cannot assume everyone is like me. And I must come to every coaching session with the mindset that my coachees may not know their strengths and weaknesses yet.
I must also remember that “where I did wrong” is not a sign of weakness. It may just be that if I do it another way, my strengths get amplified.
Like the experienced guide in the boat metaphor, my role is to help the coachee realise his strengths and make his journey less bumpy.
Enter Strength-Based Coaching
But where do I start?
The first place is with me – Identifying my strengths and how they can help (or harm) me.
After all, I can’t train to be a lifeguard without knowing how to swim first.
According to the Gallup’s Clifton StrengthsFinder™ chart, below are my top five strengths:
- Analytical
- Learner
- Self-Assurance
- Context
- Positivity
My Top Strength (Analytical) Viewed in the Context of the Core Quadrant® by Daniel Ofman
I get a high when I need to analyse (and measure) stuff. I believe that anything measurable is improve-able. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I excel in helping my online marketing clients achieve their sales results via Google and FB Ads.
But these strengths can, at times, work against me. I can be so analytical that I can’t move forward if I cannot make sense of the data in front of me. It’s like a case of paralysis caused by analysis. Or I get judgmental about people doing jobs without proper research.
So, the challenge for me is to be illogical or have a little ‘faith’, believing that no one would die even if I proceeded without sufficient data to analyse.
However, no matter how thinly you slice a piece of bread, there are always two sides to it. Too much “faith” may also result in substantial financial loss, like using ‘hope’ as a business strategy instead of doing the proper SWOT analysis. This is the “Allergy” part of the Core Quadrant.
The goal is to strike a healthy balance between the two positives – Core Quality (Analytical) «» Challenge (Illogical)
Know Thyself, Know Your Coachee
Knowing how to identify my strengths and the potential pitfalls caused by them and how to strike a balance will equip me to help my coachees do likewise.
Strengths or weaknesses. Core quality or pitfalls. My mindset should always be:
Always look at the coachee as someone with dreams and aspirations, not someone with a problem to fix. Coaching with compassion must always come before coaching for compliance.
PS: I wrote about the Turtle and the Hare Race in one of my FB posts – with a different twist. Click here if you like to know what twist it is.
