From Coaching perspective
What is a coach’s role in keeping the client committed and taking on responsibilities?
First of all, a coach needs to make sure a commitment is genuine and in alignment with the client’s values and beliefs. A halfhearted commitment is at best an attempt to try, at worst doomed to fail. Following through on commitments is powerful. It builds self confidence. It also builds trust with everyone around you. When you are working with a client you want them to follow through on their commitments, or you want them to explore what else they might be committed to. Once they explore their Underlying Automatic Commitments, they may decide not to change them. The point is that by identifying their UAC, they have the power to change. The choice is in their hands. They are no longer living as a victim of life, but consciously choosing their commitments.
When a client is not able to deliver a commitment, instead of questioning the coachability of the client, a coach should encourage the client to see the tasks from a different perspective. The client should then try to rephrase the commitment. The coach should encourage the client’s self-observation in order to discover the reasons behind the obstacles. The coach can help the client reexamine the benefits of the agreed objectives, reiterate the consequences of not achieving them, and check what structure would make it easier to reach the agreed goals.
If the coach does not push for the fulfillment of a commitment, the client automatically takes on the responsibility for working through his own inner resistance and obstacles. The coach puts the choice in front of the client and allows him to go through his struggle and the process. A coach’s main role here is to help the client to stay focused and put learning ahead of the dualism of success and failure. It is ultimately the client’s responsibility to achieve a desired outcome. It is quite clear that making people accountable for their decisions and actions is a form of intervention.
In the coaching context, it is a way of supporting the client and forms part of the service that a coach offers. For this method to be effective, the coach has to confirm with the client whether and how he would like to be made accountable. If you want to stay committed to something then commit to being the best you can be! Thomas Merton said, “The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.”
Assessment Tool – Client stand on ‘Commitment’ or ‘Trying’
The Coach can design a powerful questionnaire and ask the client to answer each of them, to assess the potential involvement of the client in a commitment vs trying status with regards to the prevailing issue requiring coaching intervention.
- What is your values, beliefs and ethics in life ?
- How important is this priority issue in your current life ?
- The priority issue – is it your need or desire ?
- What is the reason for bringing this issue on priority 1 list ?
- In the scale of 1-5, what is your Self Trust & Confidence rate in relevance to resolving this priority issue ?
- What is your conviction & confusion on this priority issue ?
- The execution of resolution on this priority issue – is it negotiable or non-negotiable ?
- Are you forced to work on this issue on priority by anyone or you have set the priority ?
- Bringing a resolution to this priority issue – is it urgent or important ?
- What are the repercussions of not working on this priority issue ?
- Is your priority issue is defined or not-defined ?
- Have you set the expectations on the outcome of the coaching intervention with respect to this priority issue ?
- Is the issue on priority is due to intuition or intention ?
- Are you inforced or enforced to find resolution for this priority issue ?
- What is your perceived probability of fear of failure vs success on this priority issue resolution ?
- Have you analysed your capability vs capacity in executing the resolution on this priority issue ?
- Finding and acting on the resolution – is it a passion or expectation ?
The Coach can apply the above questions & the answers by the client would clearly indicate the involvement of client against finding/acting on the resolution against the current priority issue. Based on the total analysis of above responses, the Coach can take call on the Coaching engagement with the client.
To elaborate further,
a) People with strong ethics and values will easily connect themselves with the priority issue. The specific resolution among the alternatives derived during the coaching engagement will determine whether he will commit & act on it.For ex. If leaving the office strictly on dot on all working days enforces pushing the priority work for the next day(s). Then the client with professional values may not ‘commit’ to such resolution. Instead, if the Coaching intervention triggers him to delegate the manageable work to his subordinates and thus enable his exit from office as per cut off time, then the client will completely ‘commit’ on the actions
.b) For Question 2, if the answer is ‘extremely important’, then it is understood that the client ‘will work on it 100%’.
c) Similarly, the desires are always part of the wish list basket. There will not be any temptation to work on it consistently. On the other hand, if this is absolute need, then the client will ‘commit’ himself to execute it regularly.
d) On Q4, if the client starts things and writing the reasons for prioritizing the specific issue, it would also mean his body/soul/mind is simultaneously working on it and the ‘commitment’ will be high here.
e) Self Trust and Confidence on executing resolution to the priority issue, indicates the determination & commitment to find the resolution and act on it. Lack of trust & confidence in the problem statement consciously influences ‘trying’ approach for the client.
f) When the client is convinced about the current issue, he is mentally prepared to align himself to the resolution and cope up. If he is in a confusion status on the problem statement itself, however the best resolution the later could be, the client will only attempt (try) to act on it. It will find a natural death at some point of time.
g) If the client is self aware that he is in a non-negotiable status with regard to finding the resolution, then he has self-conditioned to commit and work on the resolution. Else it will get into ‘trying’ mode, if the issue gets in to negotiable mode.
h) In all normal circumstances, the client may get in to ‘trying’ mode if the priority for resolution is set by someone.
Conclusion
Normally the ‘commitment’ gets into ‘action’, when the person is in a self awareness status, has realized the need to find the resolution, has analysed the no. of issues and taken this on priority one, has understood the repercussion of not doing it, has introspected the impact of this prevailing issue affecting him & others, knows where the loop holes are there & has ability to fill the gaps, etc.
Commitment leaves no room for doubt, error, or subscribing to other people’s values, these are signs of trying. Commitment always translates into taking action and this always produces result. The key to knowing if what you say you are committed to should be your number one priority, just take a look at the results you are getting.
Ultimately it is the conscious choice of the people to move towards success through ‘commitment’ or self conditioned move towards failure by ‘trying’.
References
God in Coaching by Betska
True Self by Jonathan
Coaching for Performance by Whitmore
Contents in ICF & ICA websites