“Boooooor-ring!” my little sister declared.

I got a bit of a flashback to my childhood, the first time my dad brought back a video camera that he’d borrowed from a friend at work. My sister was filming and I’d decided that the thing I wanted recorded for posterity was me reciting the opening of one of my favourite books*. She then wandered off to video her bumblebee slippers instead.

I get a similar reaction whenever I talk to established workplace coaches about the contracting process that we all had drilled into us in the initial training, but which seems to be the first thing that gets ditched as we streamline and get comfy (or complacent) with our practice.

And I do get where they’re coming from. I mean, the formal, businesslike contracting where we lay out what we’re committing to, the ethics that we sign up to and get assurance from the coachee that they’ll treat the process seriously is not the driving motivation for most of us that drew us into the world of coaching in the first place. We did this to listen to people, to help them overcome the hurdles they’ve been facing. We’re doing this to listen and for the personal satisfaction of playing a small role in enabling someone to succeed. Sign on the dotted line? Meh, we can do that verbally. Ufff, we’ll get around to it, but can’t we just dive into the meat of it all?

The snag with doing so comes up regularly in our supervision sessions. I’m chatting with great coaches who are wondering why their coachees aren’t committing to the process more. Or never seem to be able to do the actions that they said they would. Or that the coaching sessions have become a series of pleasant chats, but that have lost focus and aren’t seeming to be progressing towards the targets that were originally set.

We regularly use the 7-eyed model for supervision (I’ll blog on that process sometime in the future) and, through turning over a recent session and examining it from every angle it’s possible for a coach to examine how they’re working in the coaching sessions they run and what the various dynamics are at play between them and their coachee. What typically underpins these frustrating coaching sessions is a misalignment in expectations. We often come to the conclusion that actually, doing the boooor-ring coaching contracting would be really useful in bringing that together again.

So, how to turn contracting from a chore, into a useful tool? Here’s three top tips for you that have proved effective for me and my network:

1. Formalising the process. Our role and the expectations can feel more awkward to us, than it does to the person we’re contracting with. Be comfortable with that discomfort. When we show our coachee that we are going to be taking this seriously, our credentials and ethics and the way we’re going to commit, it frames what we’re expecting from them too. This is work, not a natter over a coffee.
2. Through little added extras you can enrich the coaching in a way that ensures clarity for you and for them. A brilliant question that I always ask (at the start of any series of coaching sessions, but also check back in on, if I think things have moved on) is – “Do you want me to be supportive in my coaching, or challenging, or a mixture of both?” There’s no right or wrong answer to this, as it’ll hinge on what the coachee is after from the sessions. If they’ve been having a tough time, they might be using the coaching as a safe, supportive space to constructively pick through things and build a plan. If they’ve hit a bit of a rut, they could be looking for some challenge or pushback, for someone to call them out on their evasions. Newly qualified coaches are often fearful of pushing the coachee too far and skirt around the sticking points (those nice open questions are great for exploring the landscape, but they can become frustrating for everyone if you’re reticent to name the blockers you’re seeing). Getting explicit agreement from the coachee to be challenging can be liberating.
3. Recontracting is absolutely, utterly, key. At the start and end of each session, check back in and see what’s worked for them, what hasn’t worked for them. Crucially, you should always check to see whether the goals that they brought to you in session 1, are still the goals they want to pursue now that you’re really raking through where they’re at. I can barely think of a single coaching relationship I’ve had in over ten years in which the things that were brought to the original chemistry meeting weren’t nudged into different paths or (more regularly than I’d have ever thought possible in my original training) totally ripped up and started anew. “I always wanted to be… a lumberjack!”.

Now, none of this means that the contracting or recontracting needs to be overly officious, or heavy handed, or in writing. But handled with a lightness of touch, it really provides the bedrock to ensure that you’re working best for the client and that the pair of you aren’t just getting frustrated.

So, having noticed this as a regular sticking point, I was asked by the network to pull together some CPD to run in a session that would help people avoid these pitfalls pre-emptively, rather than kicking themselves in their reflective practice sessions. I diligently pulled together a powerpoint presentation that I called “Turning contracting from a chore into a useful tool”. This garnered no sign-ups. Boooooooor-ring.

Talking about this with my astute colleague Cathy, who is hugely experienced in this sort of space, she homed in rapidly on my non-snappy title.

“Rebrand it and start the title with ‘The Power of…’. Things always sound much more useful if you frame it in that way.” she suggested.

That really helped. We got some sign-ups and then had some follow-ups when word of mouth got around. I don’t think that contracting will ever be a particularly sexy part of the process, but the value of making it habit and of making it work for you and your coachees, means it really shouldn’t be ignored.

*It was the Hitch-hiker’s guide to the galaxy. It’s probably also on my mind as I’ve just read Eoin Colfer’s brave, but somewhat covers-bandesque attempt to give the series a fitting end after Douglas Adams torched the story he’d built in Mostly Harmless. Colfer’s efforts are alright, but I’d recommend any newcomers call it a day after So long and thanks for all the fish (volume 4).