You know Sisyphus as the guy condemned to push a boulder up a hill for all eternity. Just as he gets it to the top, it rolls back down the hill. He returns to the bottom and starts again. He does this forever.
Insanity is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I can't claim to have coined that gem. Neither can Einstein or Rita Mae Brown, for that matter.
I think about the USA and their military solutions. I think about Australian politicians squandering the diminishing returns of voter trust on hollow rhetoric. I think about my two-year-old son's tantrums. Of these three examples, I expect that my son will grow out of his self-defeating behaviour very soon.
This all brings us rather neatly to the topic of peer coaching. Peer coaching is very simple. It's about perspective. The challenges that you face might not be of any substance. The way you're doing things might be the issue. The solutions you've come up with might actually be the biggest problem. A peer coach can think for you (we come up with solutions for others far easier than for ourselves), be objective for you (our regular colleagues often reinforce our limitations) and hold you accountable (it becomes real if you say it out loud and someone else is listening).
Why was Sisyphus pushing that rock? He was being punished. For hubris. The one thing sure to get in the way of effective peer coaching is hubris. We already have the answers. Often before we know the questions.
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