| Hi Simon, Welcome to this weeks Get COACHd on Friday. I start this week off with an apology and a change for you. The Co-Coaching that was scheduled in the evening of the 7th April, is going to happen one day earlier on 6th April. If interested, head over here to get booked in. Sometimes we have issues and challenges that are what I would call a wicked problem – something where there are no obvious solutions, or even far too many solutions than you can cope with. In this type of scenario and using an anti-thinking lens, I would invite you to think about the issue from a different and opposite perspective. I came across a model that utilises anti-thinking that I thought you might find interesting and fun. You can use this in a group situation or even in one to one interventions. If you consider the challenge from the opposite perspective first. E.g. If you wanted to build a strategy to encourage more clients to engage with your services, you would reframe this as a challenge “what can I do to ensure that I upset my clients so much that they would never ever do business with me ever again“. Of course, in this example, you are unlikely to act on this – but your challenge now is to solve the problem that you have just reframed. Some of these answers could include I would provide poor service, never be contactable and always late (if I even turn up) for agreed meetings, I would talk openly about our coaching meetings to their competitors and rivals as well as bad mouth their attitude which just stinks. I would invoice incorrectly and charge tax even if I am not tax registered and of course would impose financial penalties even if the client was one day late in paying. If they didn’t turn up, for whatever reason, I would cancel the program because obviously, the client was not wedded to the coaching process etc. etc. So we can understand how we can ensure we can lose coaching clients. Now let’s turn this round to re-imagine our coaching engagement. - I would provide exceptional service to the client.
- We would agree on a service level agreement and hold our meeting times mutually sacrosanct in our diaries and reflection/thinking time.
- Our contractual obligations would be clear from the start, and we would define our mutual confidentiality boundaries, including how, when and how much we will invoice the client.
- We recognise that issues can happen and make it as easy as possible for our clients to pay us – ensuring an open dialogue occurs whenever an issue arises etc. etc.
We now have a blueprint that we can work with our clients with. This is a shallow dive into some outcomes that we should strive to supply, and I am sure that there are some very specific ways that you look after your customers. What wicked problem can you now have some fun on? I have 2 places available for the coaching development and supervision cohort. Please do look here for more information and for the first step to apply for this. When these places have gone, they are gone and the next cohort is likely to be a September start. Finally – see the link below for Choice Magazine – a fantastic quarterly magazine looking at coaching techniques and news. Use code FRIENDSOFCHOICE10 at the checkout and get an additional 10% off – as a gift from me. Now to todays’ collection of news and writings from all world coaching! | 
