If the client’s situation changes, should the coach change too? Mark feels he now has little to offer his client; she, however, disagrees. What should they do?
The Issue
Mark has been working with Catriona for nearly two years. He was approached by the HR director to support Catriona in building her influencing skills as she transitioned into a more senior role. The role involved supporting the EMEA region, while overseeing the integration of two new acquisitions. She did not have a dedicated team or operational resource, so her ability to build relationships and influence through collaboration was key.
Six coaching sessions were completed over eight months, followed by a second series. This focused on embedding new skills and awareness, and supporting Catriona to navigate her complex business context.
During this series, Catriona experienced a further expansion in her role and was given a team to lead.
Moving into the final phase of coaching, Mark was acutely aware of Catriona’s isolation as a senior leader. He was keen for her to be well-supported and successful once he stopped working with her. However, he no longer felt he was the coach Catriona needed.
Mark had grown to really like his client. His concern, though, was that he would fall into a comfortable, lucrative coaching relationship, or even friendship. He could no longer keep his client at her learning edge.
On sharing the prospect of closing the coaching relationship, Catriona responded with alarm. She raised fears that there was still much to be done. Mark told himself: “This is a normal response”, yet, he questioned the impact of the work they had done.
How might he navigate this situation?
The Interventions
Katherine Long, Systemic leadership and team coach
Mark has a great opportunity to turn the situation into a positive for all parties, but to do so he’ll need to re-position himself within the constellation he’s become embedded in.
First, Mark needs to address his own feelings about the coaching relationship. While he understands that continuing the coaching might compromise him professionally, at some level he is still emotionally hooked into being needed.
It’s unclear what Mark’s supervisory arrangements are – has he become isolated in his practice, just as his client is apparently isolated in her role, thus mirroring and potentially amplifying this pattern?
Once he is cleaner and clearer about his role and responsibilities as the coach, he will be better resourced to bring the relationship to an appropriate close, and decide whether to maintain a separate friendship with Catriona beyond that. They are adults, after all.
Second, the sponsor, coach and client have all placed their focus on filling a gap (support to Catriona). Instead, Mark could redirect their focus towards addressing how that gap could be closed, which will be more sustainable in the long term.
In the remaining sessions, he could support Catriona in becoming pro-active in enrolling line manager support, sourcing mentors and accessing global leadership development and forums.
He could also explore with the sponsor the availability and visibility of such resources, and how coaching might become more integrated, rather than a standalone and isolated intervention.
Third, over time, Mark can develop as a learning partner to the organisation, not just as a one-to-one coach. He’s potentially lost sight of the opportunity to build a trusting relationship with the HR sponsor and, with that, the potential to enhance shared organisational learning regarding the challenges and opportunities for developing leadership and effective teams within the changing global culture.
Hopefully, it’s not too late.
Alison Whybrow, Director, Alison Whybrow Consulting
There might be a temptation to look at this from Mark’s perspective, or through the lens of the coaching interaction alone.
There are at least three, possibly four or five, explicit parts to this system: Mark, Catriona, the client organisation, maybe also a line manager and HR.
Whatever Mark is experiencing, feeling and thinking, these are not coming from him alone, but are inextricably linked to the system.
A colleague of mine might suggest bringing a handful of buttons along to the coaching session to give a voice to these different components, making explicit what is currently implicit or assumed and giving voice to the relationships as well as the people.
There is probably something for Mark to take to supervision about ending.
We recently explored endings and created our own ending at the closure of one of our year-long coaching programmes.
When asked, “How do you end your client relationships?” I replied, “It depends”. It’s not something that is mine alone to do. The core principles are co-creation, reflection, celebration and taking a future view. We may share gifts of poetry, music, flowers, sit in silent meditation together, or walk our journey. We may purposefully meet in a different location. Or we may simply notice it’s the last session, thank each other and say goodbye.
This case causes me to reflect again on the importance of the ending phase, of what that means and how we need to start with the end in mind. Not just a focus on coaching goals and outcomes, the practicalities of meetings and review points, but with a much deeper perspective, focusing on the real process of moving apart from an intimate connection, acknowledging loss and celebrating what we are each taking with us.
I need to have a look at my coaching contract; it might need another tweak.