The Client Who Wants the Answer
Ravi has had four sessions with his coach, Mei, through a leadership programme. Each session follows the same arc: Ravi describes a conflict with his peer Tom in vivid detail, then says, 'Just tell me what to say to him. You've coached hundreds of people.' When Mei asks an open question, he answers in a ninety-second monologue. Twice she has offered a framework; both times he called it 'obvious' and returned to the story. He has a performance review in three weeks, and the programme requires a 'leadership action plan' submitted at session six. Mei's programme manager has emailed all coaches asking them to 'ensure' participants complete the plan.
1. Mei is tempted to give Ravi the script he keeps asking for. What is she actually hearing, and what would shift the pattern?
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The evidence in the case is that advice has already been tried twice and failed. Repeating a move that has not worked - but more firmly - is the least defensible next step.
Hypotheses worth holding loosely:
- The request for a script may be a request for relief from the discomfort of the conflict, not for technique.
- The long monologues may be how he thinks; interrupting to insert a clever question may only restart the loop.
- 'Obvious' may mean the framework does not touch what he actually cares about - which Mei has not yet found.
- He may be operating from a belief like 'if I get the wording right, Tom will change,' which no script can satisfy.
Moves that change the pattern:
- Name the pattern once, without interpretation presented as fact: 'That's twice a framework has landed as obvious, and we're back in the story. I'm wondering what you'd want from me that would actually be useful.'
- Ask about the want underneath: 'Suppose the conversation with Tom goes exactly as you hope. What's different then?'
- Ask him to observe his own process: 'What happens for you in the moment you decide to explain it again rather than answer?'
- Offer a small experiment rather than a framework: rehearse one sentence, or notice what he feels when he imagines the review.
On advice generally: sharing a perspective is not forbidden. But it should be offered sparingly, with permission, and in service of the client's awareness - not as a rescue from the coach's own discomfort with repetition.
2. What should Mei do about the programme manager's instruction to 'ensure' participants submit the action plan?
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The word 'ensure' is doing a lot of work, and Mei should not quietly absorb it into her coaching.
- A coach cannot ensure a client output. She can invite, support, remind, and structure. If she becomes responsible for the deliverable, she acquires an agenda that is not the client's, and the client can feel it - most acutely in the sessions where he most needs to be free.
- Raise it with the programme manager, not with passive compliance. Ask what the plan is for, who reads it, and what happens to a participant who does not submit. Then say what she can commit to: raising it once, offering session time to work on it, and confirming submission status if the agreement allows.
- Be transparent with Ravi. Tell him the requirement exists and what Mei has and has not agreed to do about it. Do not become the programme's enforcement arm by stealth.
- If the pressure hardens - for example, submission becomes a condition of the coach's payment or rating - that is a contracting problem to renegotiate, not a coaching problem to solve by pushing the client.
The reasoning the exam rewards: an outcome the coach is accountable for that the client is not choosing is, by definition, not a coaching outcome.
3. Ravi calls the second framework 'obvious.' How should Mei take that, and what should she avoid concluding?
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'Obvious' is information, not a verdict on Mei's competence - and the wrong conclusion is 'he is resistant,' which invites Mei to work harder on him.
What it might mean:
- The framework is intellectually familiar, so it produces no new awareness. Familiar and useful are different things.
- He has heard it before from someone whose opinion mattered, and it did not help then.
- He is signalling that he wants something other than models - possibly permission, or a witness.
What to avoid:
- Defending the framework, or explaining it more carefully. That makes the session about the model.
- Abandoning all input. A coach who only ever asks questions can become passive; sometimes a crisp observation or a piece of honest feedback is exactly what evokes awareness. The test is whether it is offered and released, or delivered and defended.
- Reading a single 'obvious' as a pattern. Two instances is a hypothesis, not a diagnosis.
A workable response in the moment: 'Fair enough. If it's obvious, what's the gap between knowing it and doing it with Tom?' That converts a dismissal into a doorway, and it hands the work back without withdrawing warmth.
Watch also for the monologues: Mei may need to interrupt. Interrupting with respect - 'Let me stop you there for a second' - is presence, not rudeness; letting a client talk for ninety seconds past the question is not listening, it is waiting.