What are the symptoms of an ineffectively established coaching agreement?

Posted on: 11 Jun 2020

When was the last time you experienced one of these coaching scenarios:

  • Your client and/or coaching session did not stay ‘on track’.
  • Your client and/or coaching session ‘meandered’ or ‘went in circles’.
  • You hit on ‘the real issue’ too late in the session.
  • A session stayed in the ‘transactional realm’, lacking transformational insight and outcomes.
  • You ran out of time to design actions, wrap up or effectively co-create the completion of a session or your session just ran over-time.

Did you know that all of the above scenarios are symptoms of an ineffectively established coaching agreement?

Fran Fisher, MCC and ICF Assessor, talks about using the process of Creating the Coaching Agreement to establish clarity and alignment between coach and client and reach deeper levels of discovery. She teaches coaches to use the coaching agreement to support their clients in discovering their underlying issue at the beginning of the session, rather than later in the session or not at all.

Creating the Coaching Agreement, the foundation of each and every coaching session, ensures your coaching conversations are clearly focused and directed towards what the client really wants – and this is often quite different to what they bring to the session. When you uncover your clients’ underlying motivation during the creation of the agreement, not only does this result in a more effective, transformational session, but it also leads to longer lasting resolution and results.

If you’ve recently experienced any of the symptoms above, it might be time to refine or refresh your process of establishing the coaching agreement and our upcoming Creating the Coaching Agreement Peer Coaching Round will support you in doing this.

In its fourth year running, the Creating the Coaching Agreement Peer Coaching Round is now more transformational than ever. This year’s round includes audios from Fran’s My Portable Mentor and The Wisdom Way Coaching Mastery Program and five creating the agreement demos by Fran. We have also provided structured guidance for getting the most out of the audios and reinforcing your learning with your peer partners. Plus past participants of Creating the Coaching Agreement Peer Coaching Rounds in previous years can participate again and get access to the new audios for a discounted price.

As always, we’re also offering the Creating the Coaching Agreement Group Mentoring Session (available for registration separately) to learn from Fran’s feedback on your own and others’ processes of establishing the coaching agreement (observer-only session also available).

Click here for more information about our Creating the Coaching Agreement Peer Coaching Round as well as the Group Mentoring Session, or if you’re already convinced this round/session is just what you need to transform your coaching sessions, click here to register for the peer coaching round or click here to register for the group mentoring or observer session.

Supporting you in both tweaking and transforming your coaching sessions,
Kerryn Griffiths, PCC, PhD and Global ReciproCoach Coordinator