What gets in the way of successful coaching?

Recently, I particpated in a study that attempted to measure the key factors that determine success in an executive coaching engagement. When I compared what I consider to be my “successful” vs “unsuccessful” coaching engagements, I don’t believe the survey enabled me to get to the crux of what I believe made the real difference, but it certainly made me think seriously about the issue.

To me: “Successful” meant that they were able to make significant behavioral changes and become more effective within their organizations at achieving their goals. “Unsuccessful” meant that they were not able to change the behavior patterns that got in the way of their success.

What happened in the successful engagements is that they were emotionally open and ready to change a way of looking at the world that wasn’t serving them anymore, and as a result, they could change the way they interacted in the world. The reason they were able to do this may have had to do with my coaching skills, but there were two additional factors: (1) how “deep” the negative paradigm was ingrained, and (2) how personally threatening it was for them to let go of it.

In successful engagements, the shifts that were required were mostly non-threatening and not too deep, and when they were, the client had a lot of personal courage and trust in me, and they were ready to dig into some of their dirt. Some of this is related to how experienced I am as a coach, because I create the safe and trusting environment, but if they aren’t ready to see things differently, they wont be able to – no matter what I say or do.

In the unsuccessful engagements, most clients were trapped – stuck tight in negative belief patterns they couldn’t break out of. For example:

One client was very talented, but so locked in a power struggle with his boss that as soon as he started succeeding he had to sabotage himself. In this case he would have never succeeded with this boss, but if I’d had more time with him, we might have at least gotten him some clarity and tools to understand what drove the sabotage.

Another two clients were doing very well until they got to a point in their coaching where it got too scary for them and they weren’t ready to go any further. With one, I suggested a 360 and it scared him, because he didn’t want to see the feedback from his team. So he started slowing down and avoiding the sessions. With another, she had a conflict with someone and created a villain story she did not want to let go of. Since conversations with me forced her to take responsibility for her role in this conflict, she went into avoidance mode and ended the sessions.

In the most successful engagements, we either did not run into these brick walls or the client had the courage to face them. So in these cases, success often has more to do with the client’s courage and commitment to going below the surface issue and addressing the real issue than whether or not they show up to sessions. While two of my clients handled their fear by pre-maturely ending the sessions, the others were very committed on the surface but kept dancing around the real issues until they couldn’t anymore.

Where the coach’s experience comes in is here: When I was less experienced, I allowed my clients to lead me around and around in circles above the real issue. Now that I’m more experienced I am able to cut through to what’s more important earlier.

I think what's important about that is that for clients who really aren't ready to make a significant change, they either wont engage at all or we'll hit the brick wall within the first few sessions, and we wont waste time and money dancing around the issue. With clients who are ready, we'll get there faster and we'll struggle earlier, but results will happen faster.

What does this mean if you are considering hiring a coach? Know what you want to change, and be willing to consider different perspectives and new ways of looking at your situations. It may feel uncomfortable up front, but usually every time you make a shift, you feel relief and you realize that what you were clinging to was just causing you pain.