Looking more deeply at coaching success.
Just like a personal trainer helps you develop your strengths and fitness, a coach helps you understand your strengths and shows you how you can apply them to achieve your goals. Have you ever wondered how coaching works and what factors contribute to success? Sometimes looking beneath the surface of a topic can give us greater insight that we can apply in other facets of life.
From a coaching perspective, there has been a lot of research about the benefits of working with a coach and why it matters. There are many compelling reasons - high level, it supports us personally and professionally - and it makes a positive impact in our work, relationships, and our wellbeing.
However, there is limited information on HOW it works. What are the common factors to a successful coaching relationship? Indeed, for any working relationship? We’ve wondered about this and been exploring it for many years in a very practical and observational way. We noticed some patterns based on our own observations, and in more recent years we’ve seen research to back up what we’ve experienced.
“Wondering is the beginning of wisdom”
Common factors to success
A few years ago, a fellow coach shared some information she’d heard from a counsellor in her network that gave greater insight.
It was about the common success factors in therapeutic relationships (i.e. psychologists and counsellors). Even though on the surface it wasn’t directly applicable to coaching, it helped make a lot of sense about how coaching works too. In fact, it makes sense with any relationship.
At a high level, the research was trying to identify the most successful intervention techniques that therapists used with clients. Was it CBT, ACT…? What the researchers discovered was that it wasn’t any ONE approach, there were a range of common factors.
As it was explained to me, the factors that contribute are:
· 40% due to the client’s resources
· 30% the relationship between the counsellor and their client
· 15% expectancy theory or the hope factor i.e. ‘I’ve invested so it’s going to work’
· 15% techniques
The instant I heard it, I could literally feel the dots connecting.
Only 15% of the success is based on the approach we take at any one time. It was a big light bulb moment - as well as a confirmation of what I knew to be true. A true realisation.
It put a lot of the pieces of the puzzle together for the search about how coaching works. On the surface, I could also see how it had applied in my work as a financial adviser with clients.
Going deeper
Not taking things at face value, I wanted to understand the research in a deeper sense. When you’re in a position where it’s important to have successful working relationships, having greater insight into what supports and what doesn’t is like gold. There is so much noise out there, we don’t want to add anything that hasn’t been deeply considered. We want more nuance and less noise.
We read the theory and road tested it personally and with some clients. Leaders, Business owners, Professional advisers. In every instance, the research stacked up.
Rapport, Resources, Approach and Attitude - these are the factors to achieving success in a range of contexts.
The research helped unravel at a theoretical level the success of what we do, and what we’d also discovered in a practical sense. It helps makes sense of why it’s so important to focus not just about sharing WHAT we know and WHAT we do from a technical perspective. As important as that is, in the bigger picture it’s a much smaller factor.
We need to look at the whole person. We need to consider their level of resources. We need to adapt our approach based on the dynamic environment in which they operate. They need to bring an open attitude - a sense of curiosity, wonder, and positivity.
We need to care for the actual person in front of us. Not just as a resource, but as a real-life person. The quality of care behind HOW we do what we do is such a significant factor. You can be the smartest person in the room, but if you can’t strike rapport or don’t have the interpersonal skills and the ability to have meaningful conversations you won’t get too far. And if you don’t bring a level of care to your interactions and strike meaningful relationships, you won’t impact others as positively.
Illustrated by Sally Campbell
And deeper still
Common factors theory in clinical psychology suggests that regardless of the evidence-based practice there are several factors that account for the majority of the success.
The review was conducted over 4 decades and included behavioural research, observations, and controlled experiments.
Back in 1992, Michael J. Lambert grouped these success factors into four areas:
1. Client’s resources (40%) - this includes personal qualities of the client, or factors in their environment that support them regardless of whether they participate. Would they be successful regardless of whether they engaged support?
2. Alliance with the counsellor (30%) – building rapport, developing a supportive relationship, having empathy and building trust with each other.
3. Expectancy theory (15%) – the person’s belief in the potential effectiveness and having hope that if they have invested in the relationship that it will work. This is a fancy way of saying the ‘placebo effect’!
4. Technique (15%) – the specific techniques that are tailored to the presenting problems. Not just the technical brilliance, but the ability of the counsellor / coach to bring in various modalities depending on the person and the issue they presented at the time.
Common Sense Factors
To us, these common factors are just common sense. Interestingly, these factors are a large part of our focus with our clients. As well as engaging with our clients in this way, we also show them how to apply this theory in their own circumstances. This sets them up to share the success they’ve experienced with the other people in their work and life.
To make it easier to understand and apply we’ve distilled the research into 4 key areas.
Resources - Consider the person’s resources and empower them to build and strengthen them.
Relationships - Build rapport and a quality relationship so you can co-create solutions together.
Attitude - Be open and positive allow yourselves to learn from and be inspired by each other.
Approach - Show real care for the person in front of you and tailor your approach to suit each person’s unique needs and situation.
The model below is a visual representation of how we engage with our clients, and also how we coach them to engage with others.
Traxiom interpretation of Common Success Factors inspired by “The Dimensions of Common Factors in Counselling” (Leibert, 2011)
Of course we all need to know our stuff from a technical perspective! However, if we just bring our technical capability and don’t truly consider the person in front of us and have the people skills to support them we’re less likely to make a positive impact . And if we’re feeling under-resourced, and our attitude isn’t open then we’re not going to get very far either.
It was interesting to see what a difference it made to us to have our instincts confirmed by a theoretical paper. We find it curious that many of us require concrete evidence to back up what we innately know to be true. But that’s a wondering for another day!
If you’d like to take a deeper look and see how you can apply this to your own unique situation, please reach out.