Coaching that is concerned with tangible results (which should round to all coaching) identifies quantifiable measures that are worth impacting, and then measures those to gauge impact. Key performance indicators, rolling measurements of what’s so, and even ratings on a 10-point scale are all metrics worth tracking.
Maintaining awareness of a meaningful measure is hard. Doubly so if it’s regularly changing; triply so if the history of that change is worth knowing. Unless they are unchanging and important, like a birthday, our brains just aren’t built for accurately recalling numbers. Without augmenting our brains with something like pencil and paper or otherwise, we do very poorly at this task, and are seldom aware of how poorly.
In practice, client is generally count-on-able to be aware of what their number is today, and MAYBE coach and/or client recall where things were last time. That top-of-mind awareness and recollection is the default state, meaning unless coach puts in place some structure and practice for doing better, that is usually as good as it gets.
Yet the numbers of now and last time do not a trend line make. Yes, you’ll be able to identify if things are going in the happy direction, have back-slid, or are about the same, but that on-the-spot assessment is often misleading because it lacks broader context.
To track what’s truly so, you need a wider window of awareness. Someone needs to routinely capture those numbers and literally chart the progress. Only then will the real picture of how things are going be revealed, including (and this is where you as coach can be of great value to your clients) the actionable insights of what’s been working and what hasn’t.
“Someone needs to routinely capture those numbers and literally chart the progress.”
And that’s the rub, isn’t it? Ugh, what a hassle, so usually no one does it. But CA will do it for you, just set up whatever’s worth measuring as a Metric.
Tracking important measures with CA Metrics shows the real picture of how things are unfolding.
CA makes it easy for your client to report their number on a routine basis, so they’ll actually do it. With those numbers CA generates a graph over time. Unambiguous trend lines reveal themselves.
Couple this with the ability to log comments with each data point, the real story starts to emerge, letting you as coach spot and presence coachable insights.
