The Interview: Eric Kohner
On acting, the origins of the coaching profession, and its future
Eric Kohner is a pioneer in the coaching industry and also my coach, so it is an honor to publish this interview with him. (Because we have a personal connection, my voice and story are incorporated, too.) I hope you enjoy his history, wisdom, and vision. Connect with Eric on his LinkedIn. — Steph
Tell us about yourself.
I’m a life and executive coach. I also train people to become coaches through the Co-Active Training Institute (CTI), and I conduct leadership development in organizations: I have my own leadership program called BADASS Leadership. Finally, for the last five or six years, I’ve focused on bringing this work into what I call emerging talent communities, formerly known as marginalized or under-represented communities. Most recently, I went into a prison where I taught coaching fundamentals from the CTI curriculum to 15 incarcerated people. It was magical. It was transformational. It’s the work that I want and need to do for the rest of my life.
What is your training and certification as a coach?
Actually I was trained before there were any coach training institutes. In 1986, I was an actor in New York City and belonged to a resource center called the Actors’ Information Project. One of the people working there was Henry Kimsey-House, who went on to co-found CTI. He’s also influential in the field of coaching overall. But at that time, Henry was just beginning to experiment with ideas, and he was my coach! (We didn’t call it that back then.) I was there, along with about 10 or so others training under Henry. Eventually I became a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC) in the second class CTI ever offered, and I launched a coaching business with my friend and colleague, Cynthia Loy Darst. Cynthia and I were the first CTI front-of-the-room instructors outside of the founders. Today I’m also a Master Certified Coach (MCC) through the International Coaching Federation.
Tell us more about your previous career as an actor. How does that influence your work today?
I was an actor for 20 years and I have a lot of acting training, and those skills really do serve me. Thirteen years ago or so, I designed a program called “The Act of Leadership,” and essentially it was an acting class for leaders. I know there’s a lot of buzz right now about teaching improv skills in the corporate sector, but I also taught method acting and the Meisner technique, which were methodologies I’d studied that were largely unfamiliar to the business sector. I was teaching leaders those skills for the sake of creating their “role” as leaders.
Can you explain a bit more about what actors have, or know, that other people could use? Because you know I’ve been curious about this too, though of course I don’t have your deep background.
I came up with three principles. Principle one: It’s all made up. Everything we do, everything we say, everything we believe, is made up. There are factual things, of course. If you walk across the street and get hit by a car—that’s not made up. But how you react to it is. So if you’re going to make it up, then make it up in a way that works for you.
Principle two: You are the instrument. Human beings are like Stradivarius violins. We’re these highly developed instruments. We have incredible range, so learn to use it! Principle three: Not only are you the instrument, but you’re also the virtuoso playing the instrument. You get to select the notes. You get to choose the genre—jazz, classical, rap, folk, whatever it is that you want to create. Those three principles, I believe, are the essence of acting and what I integrate into my leadership programs and coaching today.
Did you have an “a-ha” moment when you realized the power of the coaching model for yourself?
This was before there ever was a coaching model, but Henry was my coach, and all we did—it was so rudimentary—I would come in with this long list of “to dos” and we would check off those that I’d accomplished. The things that I didn’t accomplish became the foundation of a new list. That was the whole coaching relationship, and that alone changed the entire way I navigated my acting career and life. In fact, I started putting things on the list that had nothing to do with acting. Just having somebody hold me accountable on a weekly basis changed my life. Now, granted, the person holding me accountable was a very skilled man. Eventually I decided to follow in Henry’s footsteps. People used to say to me, “Why are you an actor, it’s such a hard profession!” But I just loved it. Then, at a certain point, I started joking that I acted to support my coaching career.
What are you like as a coach today?
My style is not what I think the coaching world envisions; I’m not for everybody. I’m very New York. People hire me because I challenge them. People hire me because I have a huge heart and at the same time can speak hard truths. I have a lot of range—I use much more of my heart and gut and passion than my brain. I have a brain, of course, but it’s not my go-to. And today I also get hired because of my experience and wisdom. But initially, I was a live wire. I would disrupt the status-quo, and I say this with compassion for myself. Coaching, to me, is not about being nice. It’s about wanting so much for your client that you’re willing to disrupt.
Well, I have been disrupted by you on occasion, for sure. And it was for my benefit. Another thing I appreciate is that I never have to sugar-coat anything for you. I can speak my truth, even when I feel like it’s ugly. I can’t shock you.
You’re right about that. Yeah yeah yeah. I’m pretty shock proof.
Recently my mom had emergency surgery—and it was a very big surgery at her age. But prior to the operation, her doctors asked if she would rather opt for palliative care instead, so she was faced with the question of whether she was ready to die. I got to be with her in this hour. I showed up as her daughter, of course, but I channeled my coach self because this moment wasn’t about what I wanted, or my pain or loss, but her dignity, quality of life, and choice. And it was beautiful. It was a privilege. I would not have had the skill or capacity for this conversation without coaching training—and I include in this my experience working with you because being coached is also a kind of training.
This is a long way to ask if you can share a time when coaching, or your experience as a coach, made a difference in your personal life? In a more intimate way?
I feel like this interview dropped to a deeper because of your story, so thank you. There’s a number of examples, but I’m just going to tell you the last one, which has to do with the prison work I did recently. This was a maximum-security prison, and maybe 70 percent of the participants are lifers. These are men that, you know, probably did some pretty horrific things in their lives, and now are diligently working on improving themselves to become better human beings. Being in the presence of that was really inspiring. And the irony is that what they were exhibiting, more than anything else, was innocence. I don’t mean innocence of their crimes, but innocence as human beings. They were so appreciative we were there, so open to learn and willing to try out whatever we threw at them—and that, in itself, asked me to take a deeper look at myself. At one point during the training, I was having a side conversation with my co-leader about my own addiction and recovery, and her empathy helped me realize that, wow, I push away my trauma. I don’t give myself permission to own it because I feel like I don’t deserve it—I don’t deserve it because of my privilege. When that hit me, I literally lost it. I was sobbing and had to get my act together to finish the training. That’s a moment I’ll never forget.
That’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing. This is an abrupt shift, but what do you wish everyone knew about coaching?
You need to have the right coaching relationship. Like any profession, there are wonderful practitioners, but there are also people who should not be coaches in the same way I shouldn’t be a neurosurgeon because my hands shake. The other myth around coaching is that it’s “nice.” I already alluded to this, but to reiterate, transformation is uncomfortable. Currently our society has a great emphasis around safety and comfort—and psychological safety is important, no doubt. But equally, there has to be courage. We need both.
To be an effective coach, you have to let go of wanting to be liked. You have to let go of needing to look smart—you have to be willing to look like a fool—for the sake of your client. Related, in many fields, professionalism requires checking your emotions at the door. But I believe that in order to be a great coach, you use your emotional range for the benefit, the transformation, of the client.
What is your dream or hope for the coaching profession?
It’s been the same for almost 30 years—I want to bring coaching especially to where it doesn’t exist. I’ve had the opportunity to travel all over the world and work in many countries as an educator and trainer. Talk about an “a-ha” moment, when I turned 65 I realized I have fewer years in front of me than behind me, so what did I want to do with them? Now my mission is to bring coaching to emerging talent communities. I want to make the invisible, visible. What I mean is people in prison are not seen—they are literally invisible. I want to make them visible, and coaching is my vehicle.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
