How should a coach approach a contract with an organisation, particularly if it becomes clear that the participants have different expectations of the relationship?
Should they split their loyalties or make it clear from the start where their loyalties lie?
And how important are clearly defined terms at the start of such a relationship?
A coaching contract with an organisation may seem a straightforward proposition, but what if expectations of the outcome differ among coach, client and company?
Jackie Wilkinson
Business coach, UK Atomic
Energy Authority
With both the company and the client. The triangular nature of coaching corporate clients means it is important to sort out expectations at the contracting stage.
I like to talk things through with the client and sponsor together before putting anything in writing. The sponsor, as the funder or the work, will properly require feedback on progress against any objectives set for the programme. The client will rightly want help with his or her personal agenda. The coach must always have in mind the best interests of both the company and the client
Carol Wilson
Managing director, Performance
Coach Training
A coach has three loyalties here: to the client, to the company and to the coach’s own values, standards and ethics. I believe these can and should be complementary loyalties, not conflicting ones.
In any coaching relationship it is advisable to start by exploring and clarifying each party’s needs and expectations. Such conversations should be facilitated by the coach in a coaching style and the coach must be unafraid of stating his or her own needs and expectations. In other words, the client must be assured of confidentiality during the coaching. If not, the client cannot be open and honest with the coach and the client’s money is wasted.
The client must be made aware that coaching will provide clarity and a new perspective for the client, which could result in the client resigning. Most organisations find this acceptable because if employees are not motivated, the company would
prefer them to leave.
What is more likely to happen, though, is that the process may help an unhappy and unproductive employee resolve difficulties and become more satisfied – and effective – in their work.
Mairi Eastwood
Managing partner, Praesta Partners
Confidentiality rules in respect of coaching conversations are today well understood and respected.
More difficult issues arise when the client organisation gives the coach confidential information about the client which has not been communicated to him/her. For example, setting up coaching to improve a client’s skills and promising recognition if this is achieved, while telling the coach, in confidence, that this is the client’s last chance before being fired.
We always push very hard for total transparency. If the sponsor refuses, we have to assess whether the coaching contract, which involves four parties – client, client’s organisation, coach and coaching organisation – is do-able. Without sufficient honesty, the basis for trust and integrity between client and coach is undermined. Without loyalty to our own integrity as coaches, we can’t be effective as a coach and an instrument for change.
Margaret Kett
Director, 8th Wonder Consulting
This is a tricky dilemma for any coach. If there is a particular issue that coaching could help with, I recommend, and on occasion, facilitate, a meeting with the client and their manager to discuss the issues so we can start from a level playing field.
Without this approach the coach can find themselves acting as a substitute manager, while the manager continues to evade the tougher issues they have with their staff. The client can also feel compromised and unable to develop a relationship of trust with their coach.
Stephen Lehane
Director of change and organisation development, Alliance Boots
I have seen bosses recommending that the solution to a development need for one of their team is to ‘give them a coach’. They then tick it off their ‘to do’ list and sit back waiting for the improvement to happen. This never works – the coach is compensating for a lack of leadership.
The most successful coaching relationships I have seen are where an external coach is acting in support of the relationship between two people. This can only work when all three parties are transparent about the outcomes, comfortable about the degrees of confidentiality required, and willing to work in a triangular partnership. Everyone should have the intent of leaving the boss as a better coach, not with a dependency on external help.
Karen Moloney
Director, Moloney Minds
Your main responsibility is to your client, to protect him or her from harm and to maintain confidentiality. But you do have a secondary responsibility to the sponsoring organisation. It hired you for a reason and it is paying you to help one of its employees, so your duty is to do the most professional job you can.
What you must never do, even under pressure from the company, is to divulge the details of your private conversations. Speak in generalisations, give recommendations, but maintain discretion at all times.
Nathan Hobbs
Senior consultant, Personnel
Decisions International
It’s not therapy and neither is it surrogate performance management: a coach’s loyalties lie neither wholly with the client nor wholly with the sponsor.
Coaching is a distinctive form of organisation consultation where the focus is on the individual executive, but where the organisation is ever-present. The sponsor is paying for an organisation-level outcome in the belief that coaching affects the individual to the extent that the individual impacts the organisation. This is the explicit contract.
Some sponsors make a point of not wanting to know outcomes: perhaps a misguided concern to manage perceived sensitivities. However, I worry that the coach asked to be exclusively loyal to the client in this way runs the danger of merely becoming a sponge for ‘bad karma’ that only helps the executive cope with the ongoing pressures that the organisation produces.
Lack of accountability constrains learning; there’s little incentive for change. Once confidentialities are established, why not make a virtue of this by working directly with client and sponsor to effect company change? You are less likely to be caught trying to serve two masters and more likely to facilitate lasting change.
Robyn Robertson
CEO and founder, Robertson Fox
As a coach, loyalty is to the client, the sponsoring organisation, if there is one, and to the coach in equal measure. The coach shows loyalty to the client by giving them absolute confidence that interactions with their coach will remain confidential; loyalty to the sponsoring organisation (the client in effect) is through delivery of agreed outcomes, and the coach shows loyalty to themselves by believing in what they are doing and staying true to their own ethics and values.
The way to show loyalty to all parties is to ensure that before work starts, a coaching agreement is established. Clearly defined terms become paramount in the event that a coach has concerns about a client’s conduct or behaviour and is obligated to disclose this to a relevant third party.
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The question for the next issue is: How do you define coaching?