Coaching Engagement/Coaching Contract

Firstly a big thank you to Tom and Paul for heeding our comments and setting this up !

I am seeking clarity on the Coaching Engagement process and the written Coaching Contract. It feels like a grey area and open to interpretation without clear boundaries.

Is the coaching engagement normally a verbal agreement with the coachee ? Is it intended as a 'one off' conversation at the beginning of the coaching relationship ?

I believe the written Coaching Contract is part of the Coaching Engagement process. Would you incorporate elements of the verbal coaching agreement within the Contract ?

Any thoughts and reflections please.

Thanks

Sean

Hi Sean,
Great questions! Let me attempt to clarify this.
Essentially there are two parts to the coaching agreement.
1) The first agreement is for the entire coaching engagement. This should be done in writing if you are offering coaching as a professional service. In this agreement, you will outline the coaching process, the schedule, number of sessions, confidentiality etc..

2) The second agreement is based upon each coaching session. This doesn't require being written down. It just requires both you and the coachee to have clear expectations about what you want to achieve from the session. So as a coach you will ask questions about what the coachee would like to focus on for the conversation, and what they would like to achieve at the end of it!

I hope this helps! Please let me know if I can offer more support on this!

Hi Sean,

As Paul said above, a written coaching agreement is especially useful in long term engagements of coaching. It need not be long, even one page can suffice. You can put all the important things such as logistics, info on roles and processes etc. in this and use it as a guide for your first session simply to make everything very clear between you and your client before you begin the coaching process.

You can find the ICF sample agreement here:

https://coachfederation.org/app/uploads/2017/11/SampleCoachingAgreement.pdf

Take from this what you would like, there are no requirements for what you need to include in it. You can also look at the items mentioned in lesson 3.4 for more ideas on what to include in your coaching agreement. I do highly recommend that you create an agreement and use it for longer term coaching engagements. It helps to build legitimacy of the engagement and overall accountability from the coachee, in my experience.

For 'one off' coaching a simple establishment of the coach and coachee's roles, and the process you will be using, will suffice. A sample of this could be:

“This conversation will go for around 30 minutes. First, I will ask you about the issue you would like to discuss. Then we will get clear on what you want to achieve from today’s conversation. What you will notice is that I ask questions that are about what you want to achieve, what you are thinking about, and what ideas you have about moving forward. You won’t find me giving you advice or telling you what to do. Hopefully I will help you think about your issue in new ways that will enable you to set some actions to complete over the next week. Does that sound okay?”

I hope this helps.

Cheers

Tom

Thank you both. That really helps to simplify this topic. All the best Sean