It’s true that we are trained to coach anyone. The skill of coaching is the same no matter who we are working with. It’s the same skill, no matter which industry they are in. We don’t need to have worked in or even understand our thinker’s context to be able to coach them.
But do you actually want to work with anyone and everyone? In any and all contexts?
And does anyone and everyone want to work with you?
The chemistry session is our opportunity to establish whether we are a good fit to work together.
But this blog is not about having better chemistry sessions. It’s about being true to your values when deciding with whom to work. And that might actually start well before the chemistry session, as we figure out for whom we would make a good thinking partner. Then we will know to turn down a chemistry session if we don’t feel that we will be a good fit.
Over the course of my 20 year plus coaching career, I have had a few occasions where I knew I wasn’t a good fit for someone – or that they weren’t a good fit for coaching – but went ahead with the contract anyway, either because I was motivated by accumulating hours towards my next level of credential or I was motivated by money. I rued the day that I didn’t listen to my intuition.
It’s about me and my values. And it’s about them and their coachability.
The former, I can work out before I even contemplate a chemistry call. The latter, I check out in the chemistry session.
My values
For example, I won’t work with people in the tobacco industry. That’s in alignment with my value around health and wellbeing.
And more recently, I have started to proactively look for work where I can support social entrepreneurs, because that aligns with my value of paying it (my skills and time) forward.
How do your values inform who you do and do not work with?
Their coachability
What do you look out for to establish coachability? For me, it’s along these lines:
- How do they show up to the chemistry call? On-time, prepared, knowing what they want?
- Do they want coaching or are they only doing it because their boss has suggested it?
- What is their goal for the work? Is coaching a good fit for that?
- How willing are they to stretch out of their comfort zone? To challenge themselves?
- How willing are they to accept feedback?
- How is their mental health? Is this the right time for coaching, given their mental health?
- How much agency do they appear to have?
- How committed are they to the hard work of thinking and changing? Or do they expect me to sprinkle pixie dust and everything will be right as rain?
- How self-aware are they? Or at least, how prepared are they to be vulnerable and to go inwards to reflect rather than powering through to action?
- Do they realise that they will encounter immunity to change? Competing commitments that will get in their way if they don’t address them. Ups and downs, breakthroughs and plateaux.
It’s hard to put a precise measure on any of these, but often your intuition will be making a noise if it senses something is not quite right. Pay attention to what your gut is trying to tell you.
So now, do you still think you can work with anyone?
