How can you ensure your coachee is accountable for their learning?

Probably not the answer you wanted to hear, but homework assignments keep you accountable. And, on track. Expect to do work between sessions. Expect that your coach will ask you how you did. Assignments are how you get to test out what you discussed during your coaching sessions. It’s how you learn and grow.

Both coach and coachee needs to take 100% responsibility and accountability of their part. While contracting agreement may lay down the accountabilities applicable for each party, but how we organically remind ourselves of those during coaching conversations is the interesting part. Suppose coachee thinks of a particular action to take but failing to take it, then as a coach the role of guide gets invoked to help coachee rediscover the reasons for failing to take action so that accountability barriers break and new or renewed energy kicks in take action. This is dance between the two parties is essential for accountability to transcend on each side but for their part.

This is such a fantastic question and conversation. Ensuring a coachee's accountability in their learning starts with setting clear boundaries and expectations, but it's also being crystal clear on who's in control of achieving their desired results. As a coach, my role isn't to produce their results but to guide them in harnessing their intrinsic wisdom, capabilities, and experiences so they can craft their own path to success. I'll offer tools and resources tailored to augment their growth, but their success depends on their commitment to take massive action. They're always in the driver's seat, and their mindset and decisions will shape their outcomes. I may be a catalyst for achieving their goals, but the true power lies within them.

First time Coachees more often than not, aren't even aware of the fact that they need a Coach. The realization is a big step. The next obvious step is to outline what the broad expectations would be. In most cases this would be a combination of what the organization wants and the coachee needs. Aligning of the two would result in defining expectations. In some cases if it's the individual who has sought coaching without an organziation context, it would be for him/her to define expectations. This process usually is co-created between the Coach and Coachee

The key is to get coachees to set their own goals, and support the process to ensure those goals are SMART. Only by having people chosing their own goal can we drive full accountability. We can of course leverage our intuition and powerful questions to ensure the goals are supporting our coachees evolution in the best way.

Coaching conversations can often end up being interesting and engaging, however what defines the success of the engagement is achievement of certain outcomes. Clarifying and agreeing out the outcomes are the goals. These would be agreed between Coach, Coachee and the Coachees Manager, or HR. Goals need to be SMART, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant & Time bound.

Coaching is often confused with Mentoring. The clear difference is that a Mentor usually is required to have a domain/industry experience and usually shares some insights of having been in that role. Coaching on the other hand is a very specialized process with specialized skills which are industry and function agnostic. A coach is trained to ask questions to help the Coachee explore options, and eventually choose the solutions they would work with. And from there it would be important to build. One of the most important the skill a Coach needs to carry is asking powerful questions and listening, it's easy to dish out and answer or to fill in the silences, asking questions and listening are skills to be built to be an effective Coach

1. **Set Clear, Measurable Goals:** Define specific, actionable, and time-bound objectives with the coachee. Regularly review progress to ensure alignment and adjust as needed to maintain momentum and focus. 2. **Encourage Self-Reflection:** Foster a habit of self-assessment by asking the coachee to reflect on their experiences and learning outcomes. This promotes deeper understanding and ownership of their growth journey. 3. **Implement Accountability Structures:** Establish regular check-ins and feedback loops. Utilize tools like progress trackers and peer accountability partners to ensure the coachee stays committed and on track with their learning goals.

A Coachee could know a few things about themselves, and may not know a few other things. The Coach's job is to help them arrive at the same. This could be areas of strength or areas of development. More often than not, the mechanism of getting feedback, is rooted from the work environment, e.g colleagues, manager, customers, etc. and the Coach often processes this and shares it with the Coachee. The feedback needs to be structured, specific and actionable.

I always send a recap note after the session, that reminds the coachee what they committed to. And we start the next session by reviewing it and how it went.

The Coach needs to close the conversation, by joining the dots (or rather helping the Coachee join the dots), and then some action points to go back and apply, eventually to come back and check for application. There are certain boundaries that the Coach cannnot enter into, however without any boundaries the Coachee may not move ahead. These aspects would be co-created throughout the journey to map progress