Carefully consider the physical, observable form of what it is you offer in your coaching service.
What is it, as in what actually comprises it? Does it leave a trace after it’s over? In a world in which there is ambiguity of whether it was the coaching or it might have happened anyway, what will your clients have to show for your coaching when it’s over? Memories and fleeting qualities like clarity and focus don’t count in this tally.
I’ve had coaching relationships where the coaching service was 100% comprised of conversations, and nothing more.
By contrast, I’ve had coaching relationships where the service consisted of more, including:
- Session notes written by my coach and shared with me.
- Worksheets where I put to words what I was taking away and what I was creating.
- Action plans that were set in time with a record of what got done and when.
- Metrics that got me to routinely measure (and record!) what mattered.
Even today, I can look back on these relationships in clear detail, and continue to get value from them. I can re-presence the insights and clarity I originally had, and map it on to whatever I’m dealing with now. I can better appreciate what I got for my money, because it’s all in the record.
And the ones that were conversations only? Every year my recollection is that much more faded. The conversations were comparably good, certainly. But I’m pretty sure they weren’t nearly as focused, action and results driven. How could they be? When you’re not writing anything down, what can you do but be a blank slate every week?
I know that list above, Session Notes, Worksheets, Action plans, and Metrics, reads like I’m rattling off features of the coaching software I built. And literally I am. There’s a reason they perfectly line up, for they are the stuff of making coaching more than conversations.
The coaching industry largely relates to coaching as synonymous with a series of conversations, and for good reason. Absent creating something intentional to define the experience as something more, that’s the natural, default position. Coach training largely reinforces this.
There’s just no reason for you to stay there.
CoachAccountable originated for the express purpose of making coaching more than conversations, by making it easy for coach (and client!) to set up structures of accountability, tracking and recall.
These help us clients do the work so that we get actual results (rather than mere insights that will eventually fade).
