If your clients are up to accomplishing great things with you, they’ll no doubt be undertaking some larger projects: things which aren’t just one-and-done activities, but rather a series of little steps each building towards the overarching goal.
If you’re guiding your clients to plan their work and work their plan (a fine idea, by the way), these steps will each have their own deadline, sprinkled across the coming days, weeks, or even months.
If your client is missing a lot of deadlines for the various action steps they’ve planned, that’s a time to pay attention and intervene.
How should you intervene? It’s tempting to think you ought to give them a figurative stern wag of the finger, chiding them to right the ship.
Or worse, to think chiding is all there is to do, and thus shy away and say nothing on the matter. Because who want to play bad cop?
Turns out both approaches to that first instinct can be massively improved upon. The trick is to distinguish: is earnest progress happening anyway?
Earnest progress means actual things getting done, even if later than originally planned.
Nothing getting done, or progress that reads like half-heartedly going through the motions (partly evidenced by letting deadlines slip), is the lack of earnest progress.
If there’s no earnest progress, intervene. Let your client know what you see, and check in with them: “Is this still something you’re genuinely committed to?” Sometimes in the excitement of new insights and possibility (which coaching conversations are often rife with!) us clients will over promise, not fully grasping in the moment what we’re truly in for. Give us the out, help us to powerfully revoke our word so there’s space to get out of any tailspin, and create something new.
If there’s earnest progress, also intervene. Acknowledge the progress you see (we all love getting our cookie for good deeds done), and presence that we might have been over ambitious in the deadlines we set earlier. Let us know that’s okay, and guide us to adjust deadlines back to be a little more attainable, thus giving us space to continue moving forward powerfully.
When deadlines slip (and they will), you can do way better than silence or a wag of the finger. We clients will thank you for it.
When your clients plan their work as Actions in CA, you’ll both have a live window into how things are unfolding, including notifications of both items being marked complete and deadlines slipping.
As such it will be crystal clear to you how things are unfolding (including earnest progress or not), which in turn can inform your opportunities to powerfully intervene during your next session.
You don’t even need to wait that long: you can reply to a notification about an action (either completion or missed deadline) via email or text to offer feedback and support directly to your client. This is a great way to remind them that someone’s out there who’s paying attention, cares, and is rooting for them.
