How to Help Your Client Evaluate Their Chosen Actions

Part of the coach’s role is to help clients think through the actions that appeal to them, to make sure that they don’t overcommit themselves or squander their resources of time, energy, or budget on impulsive decisions.

But how do we do that, without imposing our own ideas and beliefs on our clients? They are the experts on their own lives, so they’re better placed to know what’s best for them. All we know about their situation is what they have told us.

Luckily, there is a way to get clients to evaluate their chosen actions in greater depth, without straying into ‘directive coaching’. The way we do it is by asking questions that invite the client to examine likely consequences, knock-on effects, and their own levels of motivation and confidence – but without telling them what they should be doing or thinking.

And, as with many of the techniques of appreciative coaching, you may find these questions useful even if you’re coaching using a different approach – or even in evaluating your own decisions outside of a coaching context.

If you’re mentoring someone, or acting in a ‘manager as coach’ role, you can use questions like these (and any other applicable questions you may think of) as a way of guiding someone through the aspects of a situation that they may have overlooked, but that your experience tells you need to be looked at – in a way that allows your mentee or colleague to find their own answers.

Example Questions

What will be the likely consequences of taking this action?

This question acts as a reality check or ‘minesweep’ for possible downsides of the chosen action. But if the consequences discovered are good, it may also boost the client’s motivation to take the action.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you that this action will have the desired result?

This may identify weak spots or areas of uncertainty in the proposed course of action.

Follow-up question: “What can you do to get your confidence one higher up the scale?”

On a scale of 1 to 10, how committed are you to this action?

Ideally you’re looking for a 10 here. Check how congruent the client seems about the number that they’re stating – does the voice tone and facial expression match what they say? If it doesn’t, you can gently point out the apparent discrepancy; “OK, you’re saying ten, and it could just be my imagination, but it seems to me like the way you’re saying it is more like a five. Tell me about that…”

If the figure is less than 10, you can explore the reasons why. If it turns out that the proposed action seems too big and overwhelming, help the client break it down into smaller steps. If they still don’t like some of the things they think they’ll have to do to reach their goal, help them explore alternative routes to get there.

Or if they’re ambivalent about the goal itself, help them think about adjusting the goal so they can go for it whole-heartedly.

Again, if the figure is less then 10, then “What can you do to get one higher up the scale?” is a good follow-up.

How can you fit this action into what you’re already doing?

When I’ve taught goal-setting to corporate audiences, I sometimes ask, “Who has trouble finding enough things to do to fill all the hours in the working day?”

So far, no-one’s ever put their hand up and meant it. We’re all busy, so if a course of action requires an extra two hours a day on top of all the client’s other tasks, it probably won’t be sustained for very long.

If the client is so enthused by their goal that they overestimate the resources of time and energy that they have available to achieve it, they will very likely run into the buffers before long. It’s worth anticipating this constraint before it’s too late to do anything about it.

What could go wrong? And what will you do if that happens?

If the client manages to fulfil their dream with no obstacles occurring along the way, they will be exceptionally fortunate. Usually, something will go wrong somewhere, and how the client responds to these glitches has a big influence on their chances of reaching their goal.

Research shows that planning desired responses to challenging situations in the form of ‘if-then’ rules (“If I don’t find someone to help me in my immediate friends or family by the end of the year, I’ll cast the net wider via my professional network”) makes it much more likely that we will actually respond in that way when the situation happens for real.

Who will you get support from? Who else do you need to involve?

Some goals just can’t be achieved by one individual acting in isolation. Even where solo goal achievement is theoretically possible, it can be a lot easier with help from the knowledge, experience, and emotional support of others. Identifying potential sources of aid and support in advance can make the client’s goal more achievable in reality – and it will feel more achievable too.