Establishing rapport at a coaching session

Establishing rapport at a coaching session.

Establishing good rapport with your coachee is absolutely crucial and fundamental to producing and developing an effective coaching relationship. This seems to be self-evident but WHAT do we mean by this, WHY is it so important and HOW should we set about achieving this? For more imformation on Management training click here.

Good rapport is about you as the coach understanding your coachee and about being in harmony and aware of their thoughts and feelings about their work, relationships, objectives and broader life agenda. It helps to have empathy with them – the power to imaginatively enter into their feelings – but this doesn’t mean that you should over identify with them and become totally sympathetic and complicit with them and their situation. If you do this then there is the danger that you will lose objectivity and clarity about them and their issues, collude with them and their situation and not be able to challenge them appropriately.

It is crucial for the following reasons:-
You need to understand them as a person, their reality and their issues, goals and objectives.
You need to be able to support and challenge them as necessary – but not just in equal measure.
They need to feel confident in you as a person and to be able to be honest and open with you about their innermost thoughts and feelings. Equally you need to be able to be honest, authentic and direct but sensitive with your communication to them.
They don’t have to like you or you to like them (although this helps) but they do need to respect you and the skills that you and bring to them and their situation.
You need to be able to sense and understand what is going on in their mind and emotional self. To recognise mood shifts and to sense the signs of discomfort, concern or elation. You need to know what question to ask next or when to remain silent and wait for a response.
In essence you need to be closely in touch with and attentive to your coachee – it is all about the quality of the relationship that you can establish.

The way that you do this is by using the following approach:-
To explain the approach that you are taking right up front to the coachee even before you start the process. (I give all of my new or prospective coachees a copy of a What, Why,Who, When ,How, Where document explaining this when we first meet.)
To understand their background, how they got to be where they are today, key formative events and relationships for them. It also helps to understand their current sphere of activity – their home life and interests as well as ther work life, in order to understand them as a whole person and to see their work issues and goals within the context of their whole life.
To ask key questions as the coaching process progresses and to actively, really listen to the answers and to observe the body language and behaviours of the coachee. (It is this face to face interaction with the coachee which in my view is so important. This is the primary reason why I think that telephone or e mail coaching processes are a very inadequate substitute for the clarity and quality of communication and relationship that you can derive face to face.)
To summarise in an accurate way or to rephrase in a helpful new way the key thoughts, feelings, issues, objectives, options and ACTIONS that a coachee is facing. I do this both verbally within the coaching session and by writing up and sending them the notes of the session highlighting key points, issues and actions to be taken.

These are the reasons why and how to establish rapport with your coachees. If you achieve this at the outset and reinforce it at each coaching session then you can be a highly effective coach.
If you cannot or don’t establish this essential rapport then you will not get past first base.


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