An MCC assessors guide to the “Maintains Agreements” ICF competency
This is the 3rd ICF competency out of 8. It’s part of the “Co-Creating Relationship” category of competencies.
Let’s understand the ICF competency co-creating the relationship and specifically point number 3, establishes and maintains agreements.
Let’s help you feel equipped to meet the criteria of this competency to take your natural coaching skills to master coaching levels and beyond.
Now, if you’ve been following this series of teachings, you’ve seen that we’ve slowly been shifting away from competencies that are implied because they are a part of your mindset as a coach and speak to the ethical practice of coaching and therefore aren’t items you can demonstrate in a coaching session.
And we’re leaning more and more heavily into what you need to demonstrate and prove you can do. So providing clear and sufficient evidence in your coaching to be awarded, for example, an ICF credential. But even if you’re not planning to get ICF credentialing, these milestones are still helpful because they inspire us to grow and develop in the practice of professional coaching.
What’s in this guide (Across 9 articles):
- The 5 Guiding principles used to assess your coaching
- ICF Core Competency 1 Demonstrates Ethical Practice
- ICF Core Competency 2 Embodies a Coaching Mindset
- ICF Core Competency 3 Establishes and Maintains Agreements
- ICF Core Competency 4 Cultivates Trust and Safety
- ICF Core Competency 5 Maintains Presence
- ICF Core Competency 6 Listens Actively
- ICF Core Competency 7 Evokes Awareness
- ICF Core Competency 8 Facilitates Client Growth
What’s the definition of “Establishes and Maintains Agreements”
“Partners with the client and relevant stakeholders to create clear agreements about the coaching relationship, process, plans and goals. Establishes agreements for the overall coaching engagement as well as those for each coaching session.” ICF International Coaching Federation
- Explains what coaching is and is not and describes the process to the client and relevant stakeholders
- Reaches agreement about what is and is not appropriate in the relationship, what is and is not being offered, and the responsibilities of the client and relevant stakeholders
- Reaches agreement about the guidelines and specific parameters of the coaching relationship such as logistics, fees, scheduling, duration, termination, confidentiality and inclusion of others
- Partners with the client and relevant stakeholders to establish an overall coaching plan and goals
- Partners with the client to determine client-coach compatibility
- Partners with the client to identify or reconfirm what they want to accomplish in the session
- Partners with the client to define what the client believes they need to address or resolve to achieve what they want to accomplish in the session
- Partners with the client to define or reconfirm measures of success for what the client wants to accomplish in the coaching engagement or individual session
- Partners with the client to manage the time and focus of the session
- Continues coaching in the direction of the client’s desired outcome unless the client indicates otherwise
- Partners with the client to end the coaching relationship in a way that honors the experience
The agreement being spoken of in this competency is for the overall coaching engagement, whether it’s one session or a year’s worth of coaching, as well as those for each coaching session.
So of course, the first few qualifiers are implied, like “explains what coaching is and is not, and describes the process to the client and relevant stakeholders.” That’s often going to happen before your coaching session.
Much of this competency (point 1 to 5) is implied, and is about clarity, decency, and professionalism. There are elements of ethics and about being a professional partner with your client and relevant stakeholders to establish an overall coaching plan and goals.
Compatibility of client and coach
Have a look at “5. Partners with the client to determine client-coach compatibility.”
Not all clients are right for us and we are not the right coach for all clients.
This is why many coaches offer some kind of free or introductory session, so that everybody can test the waters of compatibility.
The most important evidence you can show to prove this competency
From points 6 to 10 you want to show evidence in your coaching. These are going to be looked for in assessments.
“6. Partners with the client to identify or reconfirm what they want to accomplish in the session.”
The emphasis is on identifying and reconfirming. It is very helpful to do both.
What the client wants to accomplish in the session is what we call a contract, and I’m gonna go through some of the skills and methods that support this competency as well as strengthen the other competencies in a moment.
“7. Partners with the client to define what the client believes they need to address or resolve to achieve what they want to accomplish in the session.”
The emphasis is on what the client believes, not what we think they need to address.
Also, notice the words address and resolve. To accomplish this, I recommend having some kind of conversation about the client’s inner obstacles.
What are the barriers that we want to put on the table? What’s the elephant in the room that needs to be included to make the coaching session successful, rewarding and valuable?
“8. Partners with the client to define or reconfirm measures of success …”
It’s like when Donkey asks Shrek in the movie, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”
That’s a measure of success.
It’s how you and your client know where you are. How you’re tracking towards some kind of destination or progress?
This can be a measure for a dingle coaching session or for what the client wants to accomplish in the whole coaching engagement, the whole journey, whether it’s 6 months of coaching, 12 months, and also in the individual session of 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes or more.
“9. Partners with the client to manage the time and focus of the session.”
That’s as simple as mentioning something like, “We have 45 minutes in the session.” Or, “We have 5 minutes left, how would you like to close the session.”
We’re looking for a partnership that includes an awareness of what we’re focusing on, and how much time is left to make the session super constructive.
“10. Continues coaching in the direction of the client’s desired outcome unless the client indicates otherwise.”
It’s no good if the client comes up with what they want from the session, then we decide, “no,” we want to go somewhere else.
It’s like pointing to the map, and the client says, “Here’s where I wanna go.”
And we take a client on another road.
Partnering means we keep checking whether we’re going in the direction that the client is happy with and if we get a sense that something has changed.
I will say to my students, “if you’re unsure, just ask your client.” Say to them, “I’m picking up that the direction is changing? Do you want to change focus? Shall we switch to this new item on the table?
Ask your clients, and you’ll stay on track.
“11. Partners with the client to end the coaching relationship in a way that honors the experience”
This one is implied. This is not likely going to happen in an observed coaching session or in a performance evaluation recorded session, right?
My recommended skills and methods to help you achieve 6-10 of this competency
Contracting is key for this competency and many others.
Now, contracting has got nothing to do with attorneys. There are no attorney waiting in a cupboard ready to jump out during your coaching session.
It’s got nothing to do with anything necessarily signed. However, contracts may or may not be involved with the services you offer, depending on whom you coach and the complexity of your agreed expectations.
In this context, the word contracting is jargon. The contract of a session is the agreed outcome or activity. It’s the answer to the question, “What do we want to do in the timeframe of this coaching session?”
So if we’ve got 30 minutes to coach, “What do we want to do in that 30-minute segment?”
I can usually tell whether a coach is professional or just beginning by their contracting skills.
The InnerLifeSkills methodology teaches a 3 step framework, like a scaffolding where the first entire step is contracting, the second emphasizes solutions, and the third final step emphasizes closing off a session with next actions.
Now, there’s a lot more to each step, but this simple framework reminds us of the priority for each stage of the coaching session. But it’s important to have flexibility because we want to be responding to the opportunities that arise in a coaching session spontaneously and intuitively. We don’t want to make coaching mechanical, dry and surface.
So contracting is finding out what your client wants to achieve in the session.
When do we contract?
We don’t ask that in the first moments of a coaching session.
Sometimes a client does arrive knowing what they want, and that’s usually because they’re familiar with the process. But most of the time, the client will discover a contract through a bit of conversation in the beginning of a session (5-15 minutes).
What types of contracts are there?
A contract (session focus/objective) could be anything from an action plan to a list of solutions, a mind map to a mindset, motivation or overcoming an inner obstacle, clarity or direction.
There are all kinds of contracts.
Make sure you know what a contract is, can excavate it and can hear it when it shows up. Then we backtrack and confirm the contract. Backtracking is when we use the client’s words, we don’t substitute their words for our words, we don’t make assumptions.
What is reconfirming the contract?
We double-check the contract with something like, “So if today you leave this coaching session with … is that what you want?”
It’s like a waiter taking an order at a restaurant, a professional waiter and one that doesn’t want to have food sent back, often double checks. “Is that what you want?”
Reframing means that if the person states what they don’t want instead of what they do want, we use reframing skills to shift our client’s attention to find out what they do want.
It’s no good being in a restaurant and saying, “I don’t want vegetables.”
Your waiter is standing there going, “Okay, but what’s the order?”
So reframing is about reframing from a lack of clarity to being more specific, from something that’s powerless to something that is in our client’s power, and something that’s multiple to something singular.
If your client says, “Oh, I’d like to do this and this and this and this and this,” we would reply with something like, “Well, which is your priority?”
Checking the meaning of a client’s words. Instead of making an assumption that we know what someone means when they say the word motivated or clarity or even action plan, we check. One client might want 3 bullet points for an action plan. Another may want an entire mind map that includes some mindset changes.
Deepened Value helps establish and maintain agreements
We also want to deepen the value of the goal. We want to find out why it matters to them. We may even explore what that dream or aspiration feels like, looks like, its impact in the person’s life.
You can see there’s a lot to contracting.
And the final point that really puts the cherry on top for this competency and sets up an entire session beautifully is asking our clients, what’s in the way of them achieving what they want in the session?
- What could be in the way?
- What do they want to address or resolve to achieve what they want to accomplish in the session?
If you take these contracting skills on board, you’ll achieve many of the ICF Competencies with ease.
All of the competencies and these helpful skills are taught in InnerLifeSkills Coach 101 and Global Coach.
That completes your foundational core competencies. Let’s look at the next competency.
