O no! My client is going to f*** up big time! What to do?

If I look back on my 20plus years of coaching experience, I only had two clients who I thought were making a big mistake. In both cases, they were going to make big investments into something that I did not believe was going to work out. One involved buying a seminar venue when the client had not given one seminar in their lives, the other was about quitting a job to found an NGO with no reserves in the bank to keep afloat longer than a month. I will tell you what happened with these client's at the end of this text (sly strategy to keep you reading: cliffhanger), but before I do that, here are some options for you if you feel like your client is about to f*** up.

Suspend your judgment

Take your judgment, hang it on a hook on the wall and listen curiously to what the client is saying. This way, you can both check for yourself if your judgment is relevant or not and create a supportive space for the client. If you barge in with your concerns, the client might feel that you are judging them and might stop sharing their plans -- which will keep you from being able to help and support the client.

Be curious (not furious)

If we ask the usual Solution Focused questions like

• if you ... what difference will that make to you? (and what else, what else, what else....)
• who would notice this difference?
• what impact would it have on people around you?
• how would they respond?
• how would you respond to their response?

a safety net is "built in". The client can think through their plan and its impact. Also, by describing the difference the plan will make in their lives, the client may open up to other ways of achieving this difference. However, in the two cases I describe above, the clients' view of the world and mine did not match. In the one case, the client was describing how many workshops they would be giving and in the other, the client was talking about how many sponsors they would generate in the first month.

Invite a reality check

When talking about their plans, clients make assumptions about how things are going to be (e.g. "It is easy to get sponsors for a not-yet-existing NGO with no track-record"). The tricky bit about inviting reality checks is that it may feel uncomfortable to the client and they might think you are not believing them. This could result in them trying to "convince" you (and themselves) of their idea even more strongly: if you insist, I will resist. That's the opposite of what would be helpful here. You want to invite the client to look at the situation with open eyes rather than zooming in and defend their ideas. I think it is important to express our support and acknowledgement of the importance of the client's idea before we invite a reality check. Here's an example of what it may sound like: "Thank you for sharing this idea. I'm hearing that (this and this aspect) is really important to you and I totally get how (this difference) is something that you want for your life. I must admit, I am a little concerned. Would you be ok if we checked your assumptions to make sure that your plan has a chance?"

Decide for yourself

If all of this does not work and you are still convinced that the client is making a big mistake, you need to decide if you want to support the client going forward. Can you really create a space where the client is not judged, accepted as a resourceful human being if you fundamentally disagree with where they are going?

This is what happened in my above cases: I decided to terminate the coaching relationship. Not because I wanted to "fire" my clients, but because I could not ethically support them and I would have great difficulties staying in a coaching mindset.

If you would like to discuss these and other conundrums, hang out with a lovely bunch of people or learn about our courses, why not meet us at our regular free meetups and exchanges?