All good coaching should come to an end

A lot of executive coaching has no ending built into it - monthly meetings roll on renewed by inertia rather than decision. Nobody sets a finish line, so nobody has to say whether it was crossed and both parties describe it as a journey, which is a generous way of saying nobody agreed where it was going.

I think this arrangement is indefensible so I’m sharing how I have learned to sell coaching and why it works.

Coaching should start with an incentive, which is often the part the profession would rather discuss last. In an open-ended engagement my income depends on you continuing, not on your changing. If you change decisively and leave in four months, I lose a client.

However, this effects the work because a contract with no end has no pressure in it. Coaching sessions become a place to process the month and whilst it can be pleasant to have someone’s undivided attention, and a person will leave lighter for sharing; an intelligent one will also understand that lighter is not the same as different. The relief of being understood is easy to mistake for movement, especially if you're someone who rarely gets either.

Here's the test I'd apply, and you can apply it to me - if you cannot say what finished looks like, you are not in a coaching engagement, instead you are in a standing appointment.

My own arrangement is one goal per contract. Four to six sessions over four to six months. The goal is named at the start, stated clearly in your words and specific enough that we will both know whether it happened. When it's done, our contract is done. If a new goal appears, that's a new contract, a new decision and a new conversation about whether I'm the right person for it.

The most common objection is that ‘deep work takes time’, and I hear you - sometimes it does. But notice how conveniently that argument favours the person being paid, and notice that it conflates two different things: the time needed to change, and the time needed to keep a relationship going. Plenty of decisive shifts happen in a single session, what takes months is not usually the insight but closing the gap between having it and acting on it, and that gap is not shortened by scheduling more conversations about it.

There's also a subtler cost to you. An ongoing coach becomes part of your operating structure. You start saving things up for the session rather than dealing with them, and a relationship that was meant to build your judgement ends up quietly outsourcing it. I’ve worked with leaders who already have too few people telling them the truth, that dependency is not a neutral side effect.

I learned long before I officially qualified as a coach that my straightforward nature and ability to get to the root of a problem quickly and precisely is one of my greatest strengths, and I have built my practice on helping others find ways to do the same for themselves. That’s not to say you’ll have an epiphany in every session, but I believe a good coaching contract, respected and adhered to by both parties should move decisively and at pace. An ending means a verdict. It means sitting in a final session where the goal either happened or it didn't, and where 'you've grown so much' isn't available as a substitute for finding the answer.

So, if you're considering a coaching engagement, as yourself one question: What would have to be true for us to stop? If neither you nor your potential coach can answer it, that contract won’t fulfil your needs.