Stage 5: Reviewing and Sustaining
Fundamental Skills used by the High Growth Enterprise Coach during the Reviewing and Sustaining Stage of the High Growth Enterprise Coaching Cycle
Reflection
Assisting the client to get to the point where he has identified what action he needs to take to achieve his objectives, is not the end of the journey for the High Growth Enterprise Coach. At this stage, if action is not taken, little will have been accomplished. Therefore, in order to ensure that action is taken the Coach needs to work with the client regularly to review and sustain progress.
It is important to agree a process for monitoring the implementation of the plan and if the plan is well written including measures, then this should be quite straightforward. Where the planned progress and outcomes have been achieved, the role of the Coach should be to acknowledge this and celebrate it with the client.
Where the planned progress has not been achieved, it is important to establish why this is the case. At this point it may be pertinent to remind the client of their vision and get them to reflect on why it is important that they are successful. A useful tool to use for this is the Consequences Matrix.
The Consequences Matrix
This tool helps the client to home in on the exact consequences of taking and not taking action.
It is useful because the tendency is to focus on what will happen if you take action, but usually, less emphasis is given to reflecting on what will happen if no action is taken.
By drawing the client’s attention to what will and won’t happen as a consequence of taking and not taking action, every eventuality is covered and this should underline clearly for the client, why they should be taking action.
If the consequences are not sufficiently significant, then it would suggest that the client does not have a strong enough motivation for taking action.
Feedback and Future Coaching
When reviewing progress with clients, it can also be a good time to seek feedback from them concerning the added value that they have derived from the coaching. This can be as part of the Reviewing and Sustaining Stage of any coaching session, or particularly, as part of the Reviewing and Sustaining Stage of a coaching programme.
This is because having just reviewed progress, the impact of the coaching should be fresh in the mind of the client and in addition, where progress has been made, the client should be at the ‘peak of their gratitude’ and therefore more likely to provide feedback which could be used by the Coach for marketing purposes.
Where progress has not been made, it is important for both the Coach and the client to identify the reason for this and if there was anything that the Coach could have done differently, which would have increased the impact of the coaching.
In order to sustain the progress of the client towards achievement of their objectives, it is good practice to make arrangements for the next coaching session before ending a coaching session, if a further session is planned. If the coaching programme has come to an end, it is useful to agree to keep in touch, perhaps by occasional e-mail or e-newsletter. Maintaining some form of communication will make it more likely that the client will approach the Coach again for support, when needed, so some coaches also have a policy of offering some complimentary e-mail support to previous clients.
Another approach may be to keep clients informed of funding opportunities, legal updates or any other information that the Coach comes across that may be of interest to the client. Whichever the approach, the ideal way to leave a final coaching session is with an agreement to keep in touch.
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