Describes how coaches can increase their ability to evaluate their work.
Alison Hardingham

I am about to destroy a couple of the certainties that we as coaches like to comfort ourselves with. That is because I believe a coach can never be certain that he or she has done a good job, and the ability to live with that uncertainty is part of what being a good coach is all about – as is the ability to tolerate all kinds of “not knowing”.

But I am also going to suggest practical things that we can do to increase our ability to evaluate our work, so far as evaluation is possible. For I also believe that we as coaches need to be accountable and that we have a responsibility to our clients and customers to address the problem of evaluation as determinedly as we can.

Let us look at the ways we get feedback that we are doing a good job, and at why we shouldn’t rely on them too much. First and most obviously, we feel reassured when coachees tell us they are finding the work with us valuable. We may ask them to complete a questionnaire at key points in the coaching programme, or talk to them informally about what is useful and what isn’t. We may review the impact the coaching has had on them immediately afterwards, and then again weeks, months or even years down the track.

It is important to do these things. But does such feedback alone constitute reliable evidence that we are doing a good job?

Definitely not. It is well known amongst purchasers of coaching services that examining testimonials from satisfied clients does not enable them to differentiate between good coaches and less competent ones. It seems that any coach can obtain a few glowing testimonials. Once coaching has begun, there is a relationship between coach and coachee. The coachee is no longer able to be an objective judge. They are investing in the relationship and would not want to believe the coach is anything other than good. Even months after the programme, the coachee is likely to say it was beneficial for a variety of reasons, only some of which have anything to do with the competence of the coach.

And sometimes the most useful work we do is that which makes our coachee angry. It may be work that, temporarily, breaks rapport. So at the time the coaching is going on, the coachee may have serious doubts about our usefulness. Then, weeks or months later, they may realise that the work has had a profound and positive impact.

In other words, two things are going on between coach and coachee. One is a programme of work. And the other is a relationship. The nature of the relationship muddies either party’s judgments. Also, at this point in the evolution of coaching, few clients have the experience and knowledge to judge a coach’s competence fully.

Let us also look critically at feedback from the organisation that we have done a good job with a particular coachee. Such feedback is important, not least because our commercial survival depends on it. But how valid is it?

Again, judgments by the organisation are contaminated. Sometimes a boss wants to believe that their timely intervention and suggestion of coaching has been effective, and starts noticing more positive behaviour in the team member, which in fact had always been there. Sometimes people do indeed notice a positive change, but it has nothing to do with our work as a coach. The onset of coaching has led the coachee to prioritise things differently and to bring about a change he had long intended but not got round to. Coaches are benefiting from the well-known “placebo effect”.

So what should we do to evaluate our work? All of the above, but we also need self-supervision, continuous development, and supervision by others. We are likely to be the best judges of our own performance, providing we expose ourselves to constant scrutiny, both by ourselves and others. If we participate in a supervision group, we will be helped enormously in our ability to reflect on choices we have made and, more importantly, on the choices we might have made but didn’t. “The road less traveled” has to be our preoccupation and our guiding star; complacency our enemy.