Satisfaction guaranteed

A visit to a dentist is hardly ever a pleasant one. A belief in the tooth fairy does not do the job. It hurts before, it hurts afterward. It takes a couple of days for the treatment to bring on a noticeable improvement. As soon as the pain recedes, we tend to forget about a dentist.

A coaching experience is sometimes similar. If we touch upon truly difficult matters, the sessions do not resemble stroking a cheek, wiping tears away, and moaning. We pose uncomfortable questions, we scratch painful spots that we usually run away from, we clear the way for new experiences not resorting to mental and emotional painkillers. As described in articles 7.1 and 7.2 of the ICF canon, we pose questions to help our clients think of themselves and the challenges before them in a different way. We question the convictions that limit them, we clear the mirror. We overstep the stereotypes and habits to help them discover what is truly important to them. The words ”mirror”, „different” and „deeply” stand for discomfort, resistance, denial, regret, helplessness, frustration. Imagine what happens if we choose a provocative approach...

The thing is, we are interested in something more than a momentary reduction of discomfort. We are interested in a change as opposed to painting the grass green.

Yet, I have come across with – as I believe – a disturbing phenomenon. Quite some time ago, coaching „chain stores” entered the market. Their superior goal, I guess, is not to work for the benefit of the clients, but to make a financial profit so typical for middlemen. The representatives of these agencies would look for collaborators at every international conference I attended. How does it work? The „chain store” guarantees their collaborators coaching sessions paid USD 100-200. Yet, they make the following condition: each session is assessed by asking the client „What is the probability that you will recommend the coach you worked with to your colleague (scale 1-10)?”. It occasionally happens, that a work contract provides for not paying a single cent if the answer falls below „6”. If it is equal or higher than „8”, cooperation is continued. The best one can think of is to collects „10s” only – one would be granted zillion of sessions.

On the one hand, there may be nothing to be surprised at. All in all, I usually choose a car mechanic by recommendation, even though I am fully aware that service stations instruct the clients asking them to express „total satisfaction” – „We have just launched a new „Total Satisfaction” application...

Yet, as regards coaching, we touch upon way more delicate and complicated issues.

I have metaphorically mentioned the first of my doubts in the first two paragraphs. Let me recapitulate briefly: the client’s satisfaction right after the session is not necessarily an indication of its’ effectiveness. A cleansed wound has to scar for the results of a treatment to occur.

The second objection concerns the influence of the coach’s awareness of the awaited assessment of his or her work. A coach is about to conduct a 45 minutes long session knowing that the client’s „pleasure” not only conditions future cooperation but also remuneration. So, what is the coach working for? To help the client or to provide for his or her own life? We do not need to be experts in psychological processes to imagine that the level of anxiety (even the unconscious one) can get high and influence the course of the session in such a way so as to distort the sense of the coaching process. A coach may abandon the client’s good and focus on his or her „pleasant experience” – these notions are not necessarily synonymical.

The third of my doubts are of cultural and pragmatic nature. The said, „coaching chain stores” derive mostly from American experiences, where „10” is considered a norm, and „6” is given to those who will not show up at the appointed meeting. At our latitude, in the post-Soviet countries, „5” sounds like a decent mark, and one cannot imagine being given „10”. Unless... we „manage the relationship”, educate and convince our clients to act differently wasting the time we should normally dedicate to working on his or her problems. That’s the way it is (dear reader, if you have just disagreed with the last sentences isn’t it that you have confirmed my point? :)).

And so we face a truly important question concerning the way we treat our profession, our clients, and ourselves. Could be, we come back to the eternal „to be or to have?”. Are we just mediocre artisans, or is there a trace of the missionary in our work?

Probably both are true.

Luckily, it is all up to us.