'You Can’t Make a Horse Drink the Water'… Or a Client Get Coached

There is a wonderful saying: ‘You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.’ As a coach, we can sometimes be approached by or matched with clients who have been asked to be coached and they are not ready for change. The coaching wasn’t their idea or choice. Instead, they have been asked or perhaps told to work with a coach.

When this happens, some coaches take on the responsibility or feel the pressure to lead their clients 'to the water' to support them to drink it. But the fact is, the client is at the choice to decide whether to 'drink the water' and it’s not the coach’s responsibility to make them drink, but rather let them know they have a choice as to what they want to do.

The decision not to be coached can often be related to the potential client’s fears which will be different for each person. For example, fear of change, not being good enough, not having enough time, ‘imposter syndrome’, losing their job, people finding out who they really are and so forth. When we first meet a potential new client, we want to support the client to overcome those fears so they can make an informed decision.

There are things we can do to support them to tap into the motivation for coaching and change… and even then, when we put those things into place to support clients to make an informed choice, the potential client may still not be ready. And they may also change their mind once they understand the nature of coaching, how you partner with them and how you can support them to make changes they recognise will assist them in many ways.

Below are some ways to support potential clients to perhaps become open to change and coaching:

1. Ensure you create a psychologically safe place to partner with your potential client by contracting mindfully and comprehensively which includes an educational component about how coaching supports people to find their own truth, resourcefulness, creativity and so forth. Also share how you work, for example: 'As your coach, I'm your thinking partner to stretch you to go deeper beyond your current level of thinking to support you to tap into your higher wisdom, understand your unconscious blind spots of thinking, habits, strategies to find out what to amplify and what to let go of so you become even more effective.'

Ways of working or contracting questions might sound like this: 

• Is it okay to challenge your thinking to support you to expand your thoughts, ideas, aspirations, and ways of being you may not have thought of before? 
• Is it okay to share a perspective from time to time that comes in intuitively that may support a new perspective? …I could be totally off track with my intuition and you are in charge of dismissing it or exploring it. 
• Is it okay to get curious about any emotions you might share that will give clues as to what is important?

Let the client know they are in charge of the conversation and they are always at choice as to what they will do and not do, that you won’t be telling them what to do, and yes there may be corporate goals to meet, but this is a process to support them find the best way to meet their goals which aligns with their strengths, knowledge and wisdom.

2. Tap into the motivation for change. Support your potential clients to find out what they truly want to experience that they haven’t even thought of before or perhaps want to emulate or repeat. Stretch them to identify what is wanted and ask them about the implications of creating that success and fulfilment for them and potentially their team, organisation, family, legacy, future generations, and the planet.

Also, support them to understand the costs of not creating their desired experiences if they choose to keep following the same old pathway of habits and experiences. In addition, you can assist the client's awareness by reflecting back on what you are noticing, and asking what the client is learning is important to them.

3. Provide the potential client with an experience of your deeper coaching where they are stretched because you have safe ways of working together in place. Explore and reflect back patterns of behaviour or beliefs that perhaps might be getting in the way of what they really do want to experience.

4. Ensure you ask the potential client what they are learning about themselves and allow space for them to reflect before asking them for any commitments or ways forward. This question will assist the client to reflect more deeply about the work they have done in the session with you and appreciate they have been doing the deeper work.

5. Acknowledge your potential client for what qualities you notice about them including potential values. Let them be witnessed and heard, recognising their courage for what they do share which may support them to recognise they have been heard and understood as well as stretched into greater awareness, resilience and resourcefulness. 

Your potential client may still choose not to do the coaching after putting any of the above steps into place, and we trust that's okay: they are 100 per cent responsible for themselves. When you support them to identify much greater conscious awareness about themselves, the process of coaching and how you work as a coach, they are much more consciously aware and in a better place to make an informed decision. By taking these steps, it potentially can lead to a decision to make the change.

Be empowered.

Jeanine and Marie

www.empower-world.com

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