If you’re in the results-producing business as a coach, you want the cause-and-effect relation between your coaching and client results to be as clear as possible.
On the timescale of months, breakthroughs in life happen all the time. Pick any six-month period in someone’s adult life and it’s not unlikely that they’ll have made some stride forward that counts for them as significant: a new relationship, a promotion, a new and empowering perspective, some meaningful undertaking.
Coaching engagements often span months. During them you’re going to have conversations that reliably produce insights and clarity. What will come of it?
If your coaching is to let whatever insights sit and simmer with your clients, that’s one thing. If your coaching is that clients should create some sort of plan to act upon whatever insights and do so within a specific time frame, that’s quite another.
I once did a 3-day program that called for us to take action based on the insights we got. Prodded as such, I had a few conversations at work that led to a raise that took effect with the very next payroll.
By contrast, I once had a coaching engagement that spanned 6 sessions at a roughly monthly cadence. They were delightful. I really felt heard and gotten, and my coach reliably left me in a wizened inquiry that helped me gain perspective and peace around what seemed a this-or-that scenario where neither option was appealing.
My feelings notwithstanding, I could not definitively tell you what unfolded differently as a result. Sheepishly, I admit that quite possibly nothing did. (Less ambiguous is where the $3000 went.)
Imagine your clients raving to their friends about working with you because of how X and Y happened. A skeptical friend says “Sounds great, how do you know that wouldn’t have happened anyway?” If it was just insights and sitting with them, your client will struggle to answer that question.
You can do your client better.
With CA’s Action planning, the record of accomplishment is naturally documented and the growing pile of completed actions and projects is proof positive of what got done thanks to the coaching.
With CA’s Metrics, the numbers and results accumulate over the weeks and months, showing a clear account of what happened and how the needle moved.
Prior to any such accumulated results, both are opportunities for you to specifically prod your client into taking action based on the insights.
CA connects the dots between insights, actions and results.
