What people want coaching on

Every coaching conversation begins with a powerful question, what do you want coaching on? This question provokes your coachee to look inwards and consider what’s worth discussing. But what they bring as their coaching topic is not always what they really need coaching on. Most often there’s a bigger picture to uncover.

When your coachee looks inwards, they will often find a topic to be coached on associated to a situation, experience, person or aspect of their life. Although the coachee may not feel this way, the topic is narrow – something happened, someone did something, things did not go as planned. As coach, it’s your job to support your coachee explore the topic they’ve chosen as well as help them understand it’s connection to something bigger.

For example, you begin by asking your coachee ‘what do you want coaching on?’ They answer ‘my relationship with my partner’. In this instance, the coachee’s topic is the ‘relationship’. They want more quality time with their partner and a greater sense of intimacy, but something is holding them back.  

Whilst you coach them, you encourage them to think more broadly, more holistically. As the conversation unfolds, the coachee begins to share that it’s not just about spending time with each other. In fact, there seems to be several conflicting values which means time spent together is not as fulfilling as it could be. The bigger picture in this instance would be linked to unfulfilled and unmet values.

Here are the most common coaching topics: 

A situation

Your coachee may want to be coached on a circumstance at work. Perhaps there is a project they are focused on that isn’t going to plan and the coachee wants to figure out a pathway forward.

An experience

Using the same example above, the project they are working on may have led to a negative experience and they need to spend time processing what happened in order to keep working on the project.

A person

It’s also possible that your coachee wants coaching on one of the project team members. There may be a key individual they want to develop a more effective relationship with. They may even want to be more like someone they work with.

An aspect of their life

The example used above is related to the aspect of work, but there are many other aspects in your coachee’s life they may want to explore. Topics like Health, Family, Money, Personal Growth all sit under the banner of what makes up a person’s life. These topics are broad and complex and make for really great coaching conversations.

Whether you coachee brings a situation, an experience, a person or an aspect of their life remember, your job as coach is to inflate these types of topics so they can see the bigger picture. Your job is to show them that the situation or person they want coaching on is connected to their values, standards or tolerations.

Here are the most common bigger pictures of those coaching topics mentioned above:

1. Identity

2. Values

3. Lenses

4. Beliefs

5. Thoughts

6. Habits

7. Needs

8. Assumptions

9. Boundaries

10. Accommodations

11. Self-awareness

12. Triggers and responses

13. Standards

14. Tolerations

Every coaching topic has a bigger picture and it’s your job to help them figure that out. If you want to learn how to do this, sign up for The Anatomy: Foundational Coaching Course.