Doogie Levine Of IAS Business Coaching and Consulting On The Top 5 Trends Shaping the Future of Coaching
An Interview With Chad Silverstein
From an industry perspective, with the specialization of coaching moving back toward generalism, we see a shift in business owners looking for a better bang for their buck. They are looking for coaches who can do a little of everything and be adaptable. For instance, my past three clients engaged me for a specific operation improvement but kept me because it led to other areas.
The world of coaching is undergoing a seismic shift, with emerging trends set to redefine its boundaries and possibilities. From digital transformation and the integration of artificial intelligence to the growing emphasis on mental health and the global rise of coaching cultures within organizations, these developments are reshaping the landscape of personal and professional growth. As we navigate through these changes, understanding the forces that drive the future of coaching becomes paramount. I had the pleasure of interviewing Doogie.
Doogie is a business coach and operation development specialist better known as a fractional COO. Doogie is from Pittsburgh PA and when not helping successful but frustrated business owners build a business that can operate without them. You will find him playing ice hockey or cheering on the local sports teams.
Thank you for joining us. To start, could you share your “origin story” with our readers? How did you begin your coaching journey, and what challenges did you face in the early days?
Thanks for asking; my journey started in 2020 when a friend came up to me and said I have a buddy who wants to start a non-profit can you help him. I said sure.
So, let’s fast-forward. I’ve been coaching for four years, and my work is mostly in the operational space of business, so answering all those how questions early on, I would say the hardest thing I faced was becoming credible and breaking into the mark. It is the challenge every advisory or consulting business faces, but get a couple of wins under your belt, and it starts to snowball.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
The three traits to become successful are patience detailed listening which is slightly different than active listening and creative problem-solving. An example is I had a client who has a buy-sell-trade electronics store. His challenge was when people came into trade or sell a product ensuring the quality, and legality of the product while maintaining and managing a healthy customer relationship. After a thorough review process and watching the interaction in process we noted a number of breakdowns because the information was not recorded correctly and put in many places. It became a simple fix, we created a more simple sales ticketing process that included all the core questions employees need to ask. What may seem obvious to others is hard to see when you live in it and it took seeing to help guide the client to a solution that has drastically reduced the problems and improved profitability.
Can you share your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Why does that resonate with you so much?
So my favorite life lesson is to keep your feet up if you want to go downstream because if you put your feet down, you’ll drown. This resonates because it is all about not getting stuck in what has been and instead focusing on what it can be.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?
One of the most interesting projects I’m working on — I actually just completed it — is designing and implementing a custom management training program for a small manufacturing company. We developed a system that makes the company no longer reliant on specific individuals. Before, the owners were held hostage by their employees, but now it is a balanced relationship with a whole new set of accountability.
Having an empowered and trained management team is imperative for SMBs to free up time and resources to tackle their larger challenges. If you can’t train, develop, and manage your management team, your business will never grow beyond you.
Without saying any names could you share a particularly memorable success story from your coaching career?
Yeah, I mean one of the largest success stories is currently in the process, actually, and I’m working with a small spice company and really helping them learn all the Nuance little details of their sales process. It’s been rewarding in the sense that, it’s progress over perfection with them. They’re embracing this because they’re just too older women who love giving people amazing times but don’t realize the difficulties of learning a new set of skills. They went from desiring to give people amazing food experiences to talking to major distributors about caring about their products. Who knows you might be seeing the products on your grocery or delivery service very soon.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview about coaching. How has your approach to coaching evolved over the years, and what personal learnings have you applied to your own development?
My pleasure; my coaching has evolved through the type of coaching I do. I really started with doing startup, sales, and marketing coaching. However, now I am focused on answering those how questions (operations). I think that I’ve evolved from giving answers to leading people to answers. This has allowed me to have more impact on the actual outcomes of these businesses because it lasted past my initial interaction. I strive to teach businesses how to solve their problem so that I will not be needed in the future. Probably not the best business model, but the results are unbelievable.
How do you incorporate feedback into your coaching practice to continuously improve?
Anyone who works with me or my agency has experienced our intentional, continuous feedback. We use a combination of standard surveys, project-based surveys, formal conversations and informal conversations. It is imperative that we constantly check on progress. Since most projects are done with sprint methodology we tend to have a formal conversation about what going well, our opportunities to improve, and roadblocks every two weeks or whatever time is appropriate.
Can you discuss an innovation in coaching that you believe is currently underappreciated but has the potential to significantly impact the field?
I think the biggest innovation in coaching is that it is finally becoming the norm. For years the vast majority of business owners and people in general stopped seeking coaching. Now you are starting to see a major push for 1 on 1 and group coaching programs. This change is going to significantly change the number of businesses that stay at the owner-operator level. If your owner that wants to get out of the daily grind then investing in coaching is a great way to start that journey.
In what ways can coaching address the evolving mental health needs of diverse populations in a digitally connected world?
So like it’s funny a lot of clients will talk to myself and my coaches and say you guys are like therapists and I like to say we’re actually better than therapist. the reason is that we can approach mental health and health needs from the perspective of a person who really is looking at your bottom line. That means facing not just feelings but also facts. The mental health industry is about managing issues not solving them. Coaching on the other hand is about creating lasting solutions.
How do you foresee artificial intelligence and machine learning transforming the coaching industry in the next decade?
I’m not sure I see AI or machine learning transforming the coaching industry because so much of what we do is about people. In reality, AI will help to augment the work we do, it will work collaboratively with us helping to better understand data and research. Thus helping us to make more informed decisions. When you combine that with behavioral science you will get a perfect storm of business coaching.
What role do you believe ethical considerations and privacy concerns will play in the future of coaching, especially with the increased use of digital platforms?
well, good coaching practice is based on ethics and values; at least, that’s what we try to strive for. so I don’t think it changes in the world of digital platforms. I think our legal requirements may change but the ethics and being ethical shouldn’t change. if you’re being unethical, you’re going to be out of business it’s just that simple people trust their business coach like you trust your account or your lawyer.
These are people that they count on to fill a major role in their lives of keeping them safe and that’s what we do. Our main goal is to help them avoid making critical mistakes and make the good kind of mistakes that lead to wealth-generating solutions.
Could you list and briefly explain “Top 5 Trends Shaping the Future of Coaching” based on your experiences and insights?
1 . From an industry perspective, with the specialization of coaching moving back toward generalism, we see a shift in business owners looking for a better bang for their buck. They are looking for coaches who can do a little of everything and be adaptable. For instance, my past three clients engaged me for a specific operation improvement but kept me because it led to other areas.
2 . AI coaching will be a big thing, but I don’t think many people know what it is. However, we have spent the last 6 months creating a program for business owners. The program will look to help business owners with two major AI challenges: augmentation and automation. For instance, in one of our test businesses, we helped a staffing agency build an AI (bot) to search the internet for similar job postings and profiles. This bot freed up about 20% of the employees’ time, increasing their efficiency from 40 clients managed at a time to 60+.
3 . Peer coaching is going to become the norm for businesses. This is more like a sage prediction. I feel that most SMBs will be enrolled in some sort of group coaching or peer group. It is the best cost-effective support an owner can invest in. There are many options available from Tab to Vistage but I support the Solutionist Circle our own peer group.
4 . Business owners are going to lean into the gig economy space and hire more fractional services like FCOO, FCEO, FCMO, and these will all have a service with a coaching model.
5 Team coaching: for many years, you have had single coaches who work with individual clients or small groups, but I see an increase in tandem and team coaching. For example, there is a group out there that I follow, the duo coaches, who are two women who work with other women on self-worth. They both went on a tough journey and their clients benefit from both experiences, which allows them to scale faster than when they were individually coaching.
How do you envision the integration of coaching within organizational cultures changing the landscape of leadership and employee development?
This a great question, I see coaching filling the expertise gap in the owner or senior management. They can provide the missing skills by putting together custom coaching for individuals; in addition at the higher level, they should teach your team how to create the tools to solve their problems.
What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the coaching industry today, and how might we overcome it?
I think the toughest challenge is the age-old challenge. Engaging with a coach is a vulnerable act. You have to be willing to address what is wrong with yourself to get better. I think the best way to overcome this is to remind people of their upbringing. If you remember youth sports or school, there was always someone who was supposed to help learn what you needed to learn. If they did their job well, they lead you to the answer and that is what I try to do now.
What is one long-term goal you have for your coaching practice, and how are you working towards it?
My goal is to grow an agency that combines traditional coaching and consulting with behavioral design. We want to reduce the number of businesses that fail by 1%. In doing so we can save over 40,000 businesses.
How can our readers continue to follow your work?
The best way is to connect on Linkedin or join our newsletter
Thank you for offering such valuable insights into the future of coaching. We look forward to seeing your work continue to reach new heights, and we wish you continued success.
About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein, a seasoned entrepreneur with over two decades of experience as the Founder and CEO of multiple companies. He launched Choice Recovery, Inc., a healthcare collection agency, while going to The Ohio State University, His team earned national recognition, twice being ranked as the #1 business to work for in Central Ohio. In 2018, Chad launched [re]start, a career development platform connecting thousands of individuals in collections with meaningful employment opportunities, He sold Choice Recovery on his 25th anniversary and in 2023, sold the majority interest in [re]start so he can focus his transition to Built to Lead as an Executive Leadership Coach. Learn more at www.chadsilverstein.com
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