Hello, I am Roach the Coach and I am your guide through the Coaching Chronicles. There are 4,500 species of us cockroaches so we are well placed, across the globe, and across time, to tell you about coaching…
The story of Icarus’ doomed flight has woven its way into our everyday coaching lexicon. Icarus’ father, Daedalus, was a talented Athenian craftsman. He is best known for his chain of art poster shops called Athena and for painting a picture of a female tennis player scratching her naked bottom. It’s less known that the Greek Gods had invented tennis to keep themselves amused and that Zeus himself had developed its first range of footwear – called Tennis Zeus.
Daedalus was a keen businessman and knew the importance of coaching and mentoring in developing new talent and retaining it. He developed a set of criteria to help him identify employees with potential. This gave rise to the acronym we use today when describing people with future talent: HIPOS.
From his years of experience, Daedalus recorded the characteristics of his most high-performing and talented people, which gave rise to his HIPOS criteria:
1. Have ambition
2. Interested in the business
3. People people
4. Others respect them
5. Sense of humour
When applying his criteria, Daedalus could see that Icarus was a great talent and was hungry to make his mark. As all great business leaders know, coaching people with high potential can be a joy, but there are also pitfalls too. Daedalus knew he would have to plan Icarus’ job roles very carefully.
One day, Minos, a King of Crete, sent Daedalus a Request for Proposal (RFP) to design and build a labyrinth. This was intended to hold a Minotaur that the King had caught and kept as a pet.
Father and son were super excited to be going to Crete, and Daedalus knew this work gave Icarus a brilliant development opportunity – it was complex, had a high-profile client, would mean managing a large team of people and had risk attached to it – if the labyrinth was not completed, they might be eaten by the Minotaur.
They travelled to Crete through lush, green fields kept fresh by locals using the age-old art of Acropolis rotation.
Over the next few months, Icarus excelled. Daedalus coached him well, but ensured Icarus retained responsibility for his actions so he didn’t undermine him. On the day the labyrinth was completed, the King threw a huge party to celebrate his pet’s new home.
Part of the celebration involved feeding the Minotaur seven children sent from the King of Athens. One of these was Prince Theseus who planned to kill the Minotaur. Unknown to Minos, his daughter Ariadne agreed to help Prince Theseus. She gave him a sword as well as a ball of string so he could find his way out of the labyrinth after he had slain the beast.
When Minos was informed that his pet was dead, he was furious and blamed Daedalus for helping Prince Theseus. As punishment, he imprisoned Daedalus and Icarus.
Icarus was heartbroken. How was he ever going to make his mark in the business world if he was trapped on an island?
One day, Icarus watched the birds soaring. “Dad, why don’t humans fly?” he asked.
“Well, they haven’t invented the aeroplane yet, son,” replied Daedalus.
This got Daedalus thinking and he came up with a great plan to make wings so he and Icarus could escape from the island.
But he recognised that the high ambition and risk-taking ways of his son might threaten the chances of success. The design meant that they couldn’t fly too close to the sun. Daedalus promised to warn Icarus if there was any danger.
Once in the air, Icarus soared. He found he loved the freedom of flying and the attention of the crowds below. People cheered and he began to show off, flying higher and higher; Icarus thought he was invincible.
All of a sudden, a large flock of seagulls appeared in front of him. Daedalus screamed, “Birds at 1 o’clock!”
Icarus was so enthralled with the attention he was receiving from the ground that he wasn’t thinking properly, “But it’s only 12.30pm, father, I don’t need to panic yet.”
Icarus finally saw the birds coming and took evasive action by flying higher. This meant he flew too close to the sun and his wings started to fall apart. As we all know, this does not end well for Icarus.
Following his death, Daedalus focused on writing a book about coaching high-potential people. He wanted business people to learn from his experience and think carefully about how to work with ambitious, talented people. His book was titled, Beware of High Fliers.
Sam Humphrey, partner and head of the Coaching Practice Group, Møller PSF Group, Cambridge
COACHING AT WORK, VOLUME 9, ISSUE 5