Fit between coach and client

A good relationship between a psychotherapist and their client matters a lot for the outcome of the therapy according to the special issue of the APA publication “Psychotherapy” from 2018 (Volume 55, Issue 4) which features several meta-analyses on this topic. Anecdotally, this is also true for coaches, and, for me, it is quite plausible to assume that similar studies in coaching would yield similar results. At least our coaching supervision course participants, all senior coaches, agreed when we spoke about it last week (sorry I don’t have any real evidence in the coaching world).

But what does “a good relationship” or “good chemistry” mean? How do we know that there is a good “fit” between client and coach? Can we determine whether there is “fit” in one “chemistry session”? And is trying to create “good chemistry” a valuable endeavor? Here are my musings.

If you are trying, you are probably trying too hard

There are many “techniques” around that aim at teaching coaches how to “create” good relationships, sometimes also labelled “rapport” with their clients. We are taught to mimic our clients, pace and lead or figure out what their favorite learning style is etc. All of these techniques lead our attention away from the client and will, in my view, be detrimental to the relationship, at least at the beginning, when the coach has not mastered these “techniques” to a level of unconscious competence. Steve de Shazer advised against doing anything to “create” a relationship and said that it is best to simply assume that there is a good relationship and do nothing to disturb it.

Social-constructionist, Solution Focused core attitudes automatically lead to a good chance for a good relationship

If coaches center their clients, view them as resourceful and whole, strive to co-create conversations with clients that serve to make clients stronger, they will automatically come across as friendly and trustworthy people. As specialists in good conversations, social-constructionist coaches know how to engage with clients in a way that respects and acknowledges where the client is at while supporting them to move in the direction of their choices. They align with client goals. They view everything the client does (including requests to do something different) as collaboration and the word “resistance” does not exist in their language.

Traditional quality management is the grave digger for coaching success

Yes, you read right. In their eternal quest to prove that good conversations (aka coaching) are a good investment (as if that was not a tautology right there), coaching platforms, learning and development departments and other administrators of coaching ask clients to provide “happy sheets” to the clients. In these “happy sheets”, clients evaluate the “coach’s performance” by ticking boxes with happy / unhappy emojis, hence the name “happy sheets”. In my view, the main thing that this does is redefine the co-creative relationship between coach and client as a “supplier and customer” relationship. Instead of reflecting on what BOTH are contributing to the relationship and what BOTH could be doing differently to make it even more productive, the client leans back and holds up a number as if the coach was parading in front of them like in a beauty pageant. Instead, coach and client should take time to reflect regularly on what is working in their relationship – a MUCH better guarantee for improving “performance”. I really detest the word when it is used in creative, emergent human processes: it isolates and takes out the magic from an encounter.

Depending on the maturity of the client, a good relationship is not always necessary

Yes, research shows that good relationships tend to have better outcomes (and take the research with a grain of salt as most of it is quantitative and thus reductionist). However, I know that I, personally, have learned a lot from people I do not like. The prerequisite from learning from people that you do not like is being able to move beyond the dislike and being willing to explore what it is that you don’t like about it. Then you can use that as an opportunity for growth. Let me give you an example: I used to not like super gentle spiritual people. They felt like a cushion with no resistance to me and I wanted to shout: “Anybody home?”. Reflecting on this, I realized how difficult it was for me to accept kindness and I started to work on being more self-compassionate and accepting kindness and compassion from others. So, I guess, before rejecting someone as a coach, supervisor or trainer “because you don’t like them”, some soul-searching might be in order to explore if there might not be a learning opportunity.

Can you really determine “fit” in a chemistry call?

I’m not sure. The best way, I think, to determine whether you are a fit with a coach is to start coaching. Chatting with a coach is a different activity than being coached by them! You would not sit together with a new dance partner (provided you are on the same level) and theorize if you could dance together well: you’d get on the floor and then see what happens. I usually use “chemistry calls” to figuring out what goals the client has which is already a coaching activity, so they can have an experience of what it is like.

I think Dale Carnegie said “be a good person who has something to say” to help people with stage fright before a presentation. I would alter that statement into “be a good person who knows how to have deep conversations” as a mantra for coaches who are wondering about “creating a good relationship”.

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