Despite the strong growth of the professional coaching discipline, and the coaching industry, most people don’t know what to expect when they engage with a professional coach for the first time. Sometimes the expectation is that when they engage with a coach, they will undergo an almost mystical process, known only to coaches, whereby they will be transformed with little to no effort. The process will take no time at all, and after a couple sessions they will be infused with the secret knowledge, and they will walk effortlessly into their new sexier job, and career that doubles their salary, and wins the love and respect of their friends, and family. As a bonus they quit smoking, lose weight, and enhance their relationship with their significant other. This is of course a fairy tale. With the goal of educating those who are considering working with a professional coach, let me try to clarify what you can typically expect from a trained, and experienced professional coach.
Agree on Sessions: Most coaching is based on recurring sessions. One-offs are rare. With this in mind after the client has committed to retain a coach, you both work out a recurring day, and time to meet. By the way, most coaching happens by phone, as this tends to be the smaller footprint in clients lives. It is the method that is most preferred by clients.
Get to know you: Here is a point that may not be self-evident – the coaching experience is primarily a relationship. With the emphasis on relationship, the coach will spend some time getting to know you. The more sessions you have together the better the coach will get to know you. Makes sense – right? But in addition, the coach may use special processes or tools to get to know you better. These often include open questions, and also may include personality preference tests. I often utilize both in my practice, and normally find after a couple sessions, I have a pretty good impression of the client I will be coaching.
Set and Record Goals: Clients normally have a goal, or goals in mind when they seek out a coach. In certain ways, they are not satisfied with where they are in their life, their relationships, or their career. Even those who have goals rarely write them down. According to Elite Daily, only 3% in a sampling of Harvard graduate students had goals, and wrote them down. The 3 percent who had written goals were earning, on average, 10 times as much as the other 97 percent of the class combined. A good professional coach will not only talk about goals – refine goals – but also encourage the client to record the goals. That is, to write them down.
Planning: Once the client and the coach has captured, and agreed on the goals they are going to work toward together, the next step is to create a plan to deliver the goals. A good coach will help their client by organizing the steps, and help the client to see that if there is a logical sequence to the action steps. Often some goals are dependent on others. For example, you generally need to pass the nursing certification before you can work as a registered nurse. Following the same logic, it is usually best to complete classes in nursing before you sit for the nursing certification, and so on. As part of the planning process a good coach will look for any potential road blocks in working a plan, and also try to lock down dates when action steps can be completed.
Removing Blocks: A good coach will ask the client if they see any road blocks to completing action steps. In addition, the coach will be considering what block may exist that are outside of the client’s view. Once blocks have been identified, a good coach will work creatively with the client to reduce or remove the blocks. The coach will often ask open ended questions to get the client to consider how best to remove, or work around the block.
Track Progress: Part of a coach’s job is to track the successes, and set backs of their client. A coach will include a status check as part of the coaching session. They will review the action steps, or work, the client committed to from last session, and ask if the client was able to complete the work that they committed to. If certain steps were not completed, identifying the blocks to completion is important. Again, the coach may discuss how to remove, or reduce the blocks, and encourage the client to take action.
Call Out Wins: One way to keep a client motivated, and moving forward toward their goals is to recognize, and call out wins. In some cases, the client may not recognize the win as a “big deal”, or may not see the win at all. A coach’s job is to drive motivation. By calling out, even celebrating a win, this helps raise up the client, and helps them keep working toward even bigger wins.
The coaching industry is exploding, and it seems whatever aspect of your life you would like to work on, a coach exists to help you achieve success. Despite the growth and popularity coaching, many do not know what to expect when they engage with a coach for the first time. From my perspective, as a trained, certified, and experience coach, the “secret” to coaching is work. It is the client, and the coach working together to understand the client’s goals, working on an action plan, working to overcome blocks, and working to track progress. So that in time the client and the coach can celebrate the client’s positive transformation. Together they can celebrate the success they achieved working together.
Author: Brian Kail, MBA, CPC, is a professional career coach, and business mentor. For more information see AscendProCoach.com
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