Competency 3: Establishes and Maintains Agreements

Co-creating  the  Relationship  Domain

 
Competency  3:  Establishes  and  Maintains  Agreements

Summarize

The competency of establishing and maintaining a coaching agreement is important for coaches. It involves fully exploring what the client wants to achieve and why and making sure both coach and client understand and agree on the goals for the coaching sessions. This process can take time and should not be rushed, as it sets the foundation for the rest of the coaching work. It is also important to revisit and adjust the coaching agreement as needed throughout the sessions. A coach who takes the time to establish a thorough coaching agreement is more likely to be effective.

Introduction

This domain (Co-creating the  Relationship  Domain) comprises the three competencies of (3) Establishing and Maintains Agreements, (4) Cultivates Trust and Safety, and (5) Listens Actively. It is a collection of competencies that relate to the logistics involved prior to and within coaching engagements and sessions, as well as those which lead to client growth and development.

This article focuses on Competency 3.  Establishes and Maintains Agreements and positions three distinct levels of agreement that are expected as follows:

1.   Agreements for the coaching relationship

2.   Agreements for the overall coaching plan and goals

3.   Agreements for the session goals and objectives

These distinct levels have emerged more formally in the most recent competency framework and reflect the ongoing development and maturity of the coaching process and the coaching profession.

The competency is described in Box 8.1.

Box 8.1 Competency 3: Establishes and Maintains Agreements

Definition: Partners with the client, and relevant stakeholders, to create clear agreements about the coaching relationship, process, plans, and goals. Establishes agreements for the overall coaching engagement as well as for those for each coaching session.

1. Explains what coaching is and is not and describes the process to the client and relevant stakeholders.
2. Reaches agreement about what is and is not appropriate in the relationship, what is and is not being offered, and the responsibilities of the client and relevant stakeholders.
3. Reaches agreement about the guidelines and specific parameters of the coaching relationship such as logistics, fees, scheduling, duration, termination, confidentiality, and inclusion of others.
4. Partners with the client and relevant stakeholders to establish an overall coaching plan and goals.
5. Partners with the client to determine client-coach compatibility.
6. Partners with the client to identify or reconfirm what they want to accomplish in the session.
7. Partners with the client to define what the client believes they need to address or resolve to achieve what they want to accomplish in the session.
8. Partners with the client to define or reconfirm measures of success for what the client wants to accomplish in the coaching engagement or individual session.
9. Partners with the client to manage the time and focus of the session.
10. Continues coaching in the direction of the client’s desired outcome unless the client indicates otherwise.
11. Partners with the client to end the coaching relationship in a way that honors the experience.

(ICF, 2019b)

The essence of this competency is in getting clear agreement as to the appropriateness and suitability of the coaching relationship and the work that is being done within that coach-client relationship for each session.

The essential element of this competency is that the coach:

Establishes and maintains agreement at all three levels as outlined

Level 1: Agreements for the Coaching Relationship

·        Explaining what coaching is and is not and describing the process to the client and relevant stakeholders.

·        Reaches agreement about what is and is not appropriate in the relationship, what is and is not being offered, and the responsibilities of the client and relevant stakeholders.

·        Reaches agreement about the guidelines and specific parameters of the coaching relationship such as logistics, fees, scheduling, duration, termination, confidentiality, and inclusion of others.

·        Partnering with the client to determine client-coach compatibility.

·        Partnering with the client to end the coaching relationship in a way that honors the experience.

Level 2: Agreements for the Overall Coaching Plan and Goals

• Partnering with the client and relevant stakeholders to establish an overall coaching plan and goals with associated measures of success for the coaching engagement.

•  Establishing an understanding of the importance or significance of the coaching work and the client’s commitment to the coaching engagement.

•  Continuing the coaching in the direction of the client’s desired outcome unless the client indicates otherwise.

In cases of coaching for and within organizations, when the agreement is reached that coaching would likely provide positive results, agreements may be made between the coach and the organization for one or more engagements with specific for potential clients. In these cases, the discussions to reach an agreement on some aspects of Levels 1 and 2 may be between the coach and the organization.

In cases where a coach engages with clients directly and an organization is not involved, the elements will be agreed upon directly between the coach and the client. The activities undertaken at Levels 1 and 2 are often formalized into a written coaching “contract,” which is signed by the relevant parties involved.

Level 3: Agreements for the Session Goals and Objectives

Lastly, in each session coaches frequently begin with an informal, verbal agreement regarding what will be covered in the session, including:

•       Partnering with the client to identify or reconfirm what they want to accomplish in the session.

•       Partnering with the client to define or reconfirm measures of success for what the client wants to accomplish in the individual session.

•       Partnering with the client to define what the client believes they need to address or resolve to achieve what they want to accomplish in the session.

•       Partners with the client to manage the time and focus of the session.

•       Continuing the coaching in the direction of the client’s desired outcome unless the client indicates otherwise.

The Importance of Coaching Agreements

One of the things that we have noticed many times in our roles as coach trainers is that very often this competency is not fully explored. It is the depth and extent to which the coach defines and explores the coaching agreement and the client’s desired outcome for the work that is important. So, let’s now bring all of these guidelines and requirements together to get to the core of what is required for this competency. Levels 1 and 2 of Coaching Agreements focus on careful and thorough professional practice and are relatively self-explanatory. It is the competence a coach shows at Level 3, i.e., establishing and maintaining the agreement during each coaching session that is worthy of further exploration.

Newly trained coaches sometimes feel that they have to get to the goal of the coaching quickly so that they can get on with the “real work” of coaching the client and yet there is such rich territory in working more extensively and deeply with the client to understand what they want to achieve and why it is important to them. In fact, establishing the coaching agreement is something that can occur over the course of the first half of a session or even take a full session to fully explore and establish clarity for the overall coaching engagement. This process does not have to be completed within the first few minutes of the conversation and indeed may also be revisited at any point throughout the session.

Whilst every coaching conversation is different of course and has its own unique trajectory and pace, there is a concept that we find useful when teaching this competency and that is to imagine a simple structure that holds true for any great story, book, report, project, essay or assignment which is that it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The same is also true for coaching and it is important that all of these three important phases are fully explored and the extent to which we effectively work with one part will inevitably affect how we work with the other two. For example, thoroughly exploring the coaching agreement will undoubtedly inform the client, and therefore the coach, of the path the work might take. It also helps to establish the most appropriate and important path for the work to take and why, as well as identifying potentially important surrounding circumstances, context, or information which underpin the significance of the work for the client.

In addition, thoroughly exploring the coaching agreement will also mean bringing the coaching conversation to a point of closure and the next steps for the client will be enhanced by clearly knowing what it was that the client really wanted in the first place. In this way, you can both revisit that agreement to explore how the client will take this work forward into their life after the session in a way that maximizes the achievement of their goals and outcomes. Moreover, we will go as far as to say that a whole coaching session might even usefully be taken up by getting this foundational work done well, and a coach can evidence all of the core competencies within that process. Indeed, this is often a differentiator between beginning coaches and those who are more experienced and effective. Beginners tend to rush to get an agreement, while more experienced coaches understand the value of full exploration when developing agreements. Ultimately, our mantra is: don’t rush this!

Coaching Agreements in Depth

Having established the need for a thorough exploration of this competency, now let’s look at some of the detail around how this can be done. The first thing I’d like to highlight here is the use of the words “... in the session” when describing certain aspects of this competency. When a client comes into a coaching session and the coach asks them what they would like to work on, it is quite possible that the client will begin to share information about something that they want to happen, achieve or change, etc. “out there” in their life. For example, “I want to improve my relationship with my team”, “I want to explore my next career move”, and “I want to be healthier”. Not only are these goals quite high-level, but they are also things that would ultimately come to fruition outside of the coaching context as part of the client’s daily life. Having explored and understood what it is that the client wants to achieve “out there”, our role is to then explore with the client what are the piece of work and the outcome from that piece of work that they’d like to accomplish in the coaching session. In this way, we not only know the “out there” goal, we also now know the goal “in here” for the piece of work that we will do together in the session.

This further exploration of goals not only helps to get clarity on the piece of coaching work, it also helps the client to really consider what it is that they want to achieve and work on. It is very interesting how often; through this deeper inquiry the client may actually change or reframe the goal for the session based on important insights that may have arisen. If we are working with a client for several sessions, we may have an overarching goal for the package of work (established in Level 1 or 2) and then for each individual coaching session there would still be a specific desired outcome, the achievement of which takes them incrementally closer toward the overarching goal.

Another point to note is that, as with any process, sometimes the goalposts change and sometimes even the goal itself changes. For example, the coach is expected to notice and inquire if the direction of the conversation seems to have deviated from the client’s originally stated goal so that there is an opportunity to check in and either continue, change, or realign that direction based upon what is most important or relevant for the client. The coach might say, “Now that this new area has emerged, what would be most useful to focus on?” Based upon these inquiries and check-in opportunities, the coach is then continuing the direction of the conversation in line with the client’s desired outcome. A notable addition to the most recent description of this competency is the inclusion of the word “maintains” agreements. This addition highlights the idea that agreements need to be revisited throughout the coaching engagement to ensure that they are still relevant to the client and that the coaching is continuing to move in the desired direction.

Establishing measures of success is also an important aspect of this competency. Once again, this specifically relates to getting clarity on those measures of success for what the client wants to accomplish across the overall coaching engagement (Level 1 or 2) and then within each coaching session (Level 3). When the coaching engagement or session ends, how will they know that they have accomplished what they wanted? This is important for enabling the client to connect with a sense of achievement and progress. Also, in the case of coaching engagements where there is a sponsor (e.g., a line manager), it is also a way for the benefit of the coaching to be measured in terms of establishing a return on investment or a return on expectations for the work undertaken. As noted in the previous paragraph, there may be a need to reconfirm these measures if the goal or outcome for the session changes.

We then reach the part of this competency concerned with understanding the importance or meaning of the piece of work for the client and this is useful to establish for several reasons. This inquiry helps the client to consider their level of motivation for and confidence or commitment to this topic. Understanding what it means to them also helps to connect with what difference this would make to them in their life if the issue were resolved or the goal was achieved. This in turn may highlight some of the client’s values and the real reasons why this is an important conversation for them. This inquiry may also inform the clarity of the actual goal for the coaching session as the client carefully considers what they want and why. This might be explored with questions such as: “What would it mean to you to resolve or achieve this?”, “What is important for you in addressing this now?” or “In achieving this, what would it lead to for you?”

A further point on this competency, the coach is expected to help the client to consider what might need to be addressed for the session outcome to be successfully achieved. The analogy we would like to offer for this is planning a trip. We may decide that we want to travel from one part of the country to another and we look at a route planner to consider how to get there. However, that planner is showing us a route and timings based on certain assumptions and averaged criteria. Therefore, do we simply head off on our way and hope for the best that we’ll get there on time and with no challenges or interruptions? Or do we check what the weather is due to be like or if there are any road works or other transport challenges that we might face etc.? In this same way in coaching, the coach invites the client to consider any issues that might be relevant to address, consider or explore in service of the client’s successful accomplishment of their goal.

Finally, establishing and maintaining the coaching agreement is also closely linked to how the coach partners with the client to effectively manage the time and bring the session or the overall coaching engagement to an appropriate close. From a session-by-session perspective, the coach is expected to partner with the client, not only to manage the focus of the session as already described, also to manage the time so that the concept of the conversation having a beginning, middle, and end is achieved. It is the coach’s responsibility to manage the time and to check in with the client periodically to assess progress toward the stated goal and how the client would like to use the remaining time available. In this way, the client can focus on their coaching work and the coach holds the coaching space through carefully tracking time. This could be evidenced by the coach asking for example:

•       “We’re about halfway through our time today, how are you doing in relation to your goal for today?”

•       “We’ve got XYZ minutes left today, where would you like to focus now” or “How would you like to use the remainder of our time?”

This process of managing time is also relevant for the overall coaching engagement so that progress toward the client’s overarching goals is noted and explored and any adjustments the client may want to make are addressed.

Ultimately, the coaching engagement will come to an end and an important part of this competency is that the coach partners with the client to end the coaching relationship in a way that honors the experience. The key word here is: partners and the coach is expected to inquire and co-create an appropriate way of ending, acknowledging, and even celebrating the work and client’s progress and achievements in the coaching process. This is where the beginning of the work closely relates to the end of the work and this competency links directly to some aspects of Competency 8: Facilitates Client Growth.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have highlighted three distinct levels of contracting that coaches are expected to thoroughly establish and maintain. We have also positioned why coaching agreements are such a significant aspect of the coaching process and have explored each element of this competency in depth.