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Should Coaching Be Guaranteed? an article by Morris Berg
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This article argues that money-back guarantees are not professional and in some instances might be unethical
You will see certain coaches using the gimmick of offering money-back guarantees, because they have been taught that it is a good way of getting new clients. That is a marketing technique that is OK if you are selling gadgets, cars or double glazing. In coaching, it works against the fundamental principle that the client is responsible for setting the agenda and for wanting the change.
The only person who can guarantee you is you. Coaches often say "coaching works because it brings out the best in you". Coaching assumes that you are whole and perfect right now and that you have what it takes to make your life work, or to make a reasonably good life even better.
Of course, you are coming to a coach because you want more options: to increase your confidence, clarify your situation, generate ideas, to get some advice and feedback, to work on negative thoughts or patterns that have been holding you back, to work with some of the tools and techniques that the coach offers.
A "guarantee" is manipulative. It is sending a subtle message to your subconscious mind that the coach is responsible for the outcome, when in fact you are. The guarantee is giving you a cop-out. You can decide not to do the work involved in changing, and not to be up front with the coach with the real reasons why you feel stuck, not to do the homework the coach sets. If there are moments of silence, instead of being "pregnant pauses" that allow reflection and time to think, they can turn into moments of "Does the coach not know what to say next?" or "If I don't jump in within 5 seconds the client will think it's an awkward pause." And after the coach has put in his or her professional time and skill, a guarantee says you can demand your money back so the coach has worked for nothing.
To give you such cop-out would be to undermine my coaching and to devalue myself - not examples I would want to set a person I am coaching! It also devalues you, the client, because the coach has trusted you to be committed enough to stay with the process.
A holistic point of view is that helping work at a deeper level works best when there is an exchange of energy. Under a guarantee, the client might even choose a therapist because of the guarantee, overriding everything else - especially if the guarantee is presented as a fancy badge on the coach's website. The dice are loaded from the start. There isn't really any commitment on the client's part because the client can escape from the commitment at any time. The coach unconditionally accepts the client, but part of the client - the very part that is responsible for the commitment without which coaching cannot work - is disengaged from the process. Now, of course, it would be foolish to say this will happen with every client. It won't. But why start off with a handicap?
Some clients need more time than others to explore issues, to find the crucial point where change work can be most effective, or to allow a technique to work. That applies to highly sensitive clients in particular. A guarantee can put pressure on the coach to get a demonstrable result quickly or to do something "clever" at the end of a session as a convincer. That can interfere with rapport building, careful listening and attending to the unique needs of the client.
Even if after, say, 45 minutes of coaching, you have the sense that you do not want to be coached any more, that is a thought or feeling you have about yourself and a result of the coaching process. A good coach might ask you then if you wish to explore, in another session, what lies behind that feeling - maybe it is something that has prevented you from achieving other things in your life? Maybe it is some fear? Or, using energy techniques, there are ways of defusing negative feelings so that you become more free to explore new things. A handy "guarantee" would not serve you - it would give you the easy option of putting the uncomfortable thought behind you and carrying on just the way you have been. That is not coaching!
In hypnotherapy, there is the well-known phenomenon of the client who has a single session, says nothing happened, goes away and, if contacted for follow-up, says, "Oh well, it doesn't matter that I got nothing out of the session. About a week later my problem just disappeared anyway - it was nothing to do with your therapy." Results are sometimes not immediately appreciated and some people need lots of time for their internal processes to work. Some people will never give credit to the work done by the professional - they might have a problem with gratitude, or they might simply have put the whole thing out of their minds. The same can happen in coaching. What if the therapist had refunded the fee under a guarantee? Maybe the change would never have happened, prevented by guilt. Maybe the change would have happened but the therapist would not have been paid. Either scenario is unfair and avoidable.
Writing in "Coaching with NLP", Joseph O'Connor and Andrea Lages mention that one of the traps that practising coaches fall into is needing to make a difference in each session. They say, "This is pressure to perform and will get in the way of coaching." Now, what better way to pile on the pressure to perform than a guarantee? You can almost hear the coach's Gremlin (internal self-critical voice) as it nags, "Perform - or your pay will be docked!"
Coaching is a profession and most professionals do not give guarantees. Hypnotherapists very rarely offer a guarantee. Counsellors or psychotherapists never do. Professionals generally charge for their time and not for results. There are sample coaching contracts available drafted by coaching schools and bodies, that coaches can give their clients, but I have not seen one that incorporates a guarantee. Indeed, one sample code of ethics drawn up by a UK coach training association says that a coaching contract should include the statement that specific results cannot be guaranteed. This raises the question of whether or not a coach is acting against his/her professional society's code of ethics by offering a guarantee.
Coaching is different from certain other professions in that the coach-client relationship is one of equals. The coach is not put on a pedestal as an "expert" - he or she has skills and training, but your expertise in how your life works is equal to the coach's expertise in allowing you to access your own wisdom. A guarantee undermines this principle of equality. What guarantee does the client give the coach, and how does that work?
Instead of offering you a guarantee, I offer the following:
A free introductory "discovery" session
Free answers to initial questions by email
The chance to try "coaching particles" - bite-size packages of coaching
A variety of one-off sessions so you can minimise your initial outlay and commitment
In the future I will also be offering some free e-courses and worksheets based upon my own work
Of course, if you pay for a session in advance and it becomes apparent in the first 10 minutes or so that we are on such different wavelengths that there is no point in continuing, I will refund your money. However, the material on this site, the free discovery session, and the facility for you to email me free questions, are all ways of finding out if you'd like me to coach you.
Do you want a coach who has not thought through the psychological implications of offering a guarantee on the delicate balance of power and equality between client and coach? Do you want a coach who immediately gives you a cop-out, or a coach who will put the art of coaching before self-sabotaging gimmicks?
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For more details of coaching by Morris Berg see the various sections of this website www.sensitivenlpcoach.com
This article is copyright © Morris Berg 2009 and must not be reproduced on-line, in print or by any other means without permission in writing.
email Morris at hspcoach@gmail.com
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