Why coaching doesn't work.

Sometime coaching just doesn’t work. Either it doesn’t work with someone or sometimes the coaching process doesn’t produce desired outcome.

In either case, the coaching just doesn’t work.

I have also experienced, at least 40% of my coaching efforts, just don’t produce the required results. It’s disheartening no doubt, but in my free time I try to recap those coaching sessions and coaching assignment and try to figure out is there anything common in all or am I making same mistakes again and again or my coaching approach is not tailor made for my clients.

Multiple recap I did, I realized that in my case I would attribute 3 reasons if coaching doesn’t work.

The first reason could be both-client and coach expecting a big change. In other words both coach and client expects a big transformation, which actually does not happen, or perhaps you don’t need a big transformation to happen. Instead find little change and sustain the change to the next little change.

The second reason could be not able to work on in-depth data. Sometimes, we get in to coaching with either very less assessment data or no assessment. If the things are going well, you may not realise the need for it but when during coaching if your client is stuck or you feel pushed to the wall, in-depth data or 360 degree view can help.

The third reason I could sense is client has a belief that he/she is so strong-willed that he/she cannot be changed. In such situation, a client enter in to coaching relationship thinking I am hard to sway. In such situation, as a coach you need to use your experience to the extent that although client believe he/she is hard to convert, you can enable your client to receive the input you are feeding.

This are my take on how coaching doesn’t work.