The 7 stages of a coaching process

In this topic we are going to see what are the seven main stages of a coaching process. It is important not to confuse stages with phases (or any other of the forms we will see later). What is essential here is not the number of stages that exist, but the concepts that are dealt with in each of them, so you should pay close attention to what you are going to see.

Rapport: Rapport is nothing more than the technique of creating an empathetic connection with another person in order to communicate with less resistance. As you can guess, this is essential for a coaching process. If the coachee, or client, fails to create this rapport with their coach, they should look for someone else with whom they feel more comfortable.

Exposure: The coaching process is a path that the coach must walk with his or her coachee. At this stage of the journey you talk about why you need a coach, what problem the client has, what he/she wants to correct.

It is not necessary in coaching, unlike in therapy and consulting, to delve into the roots of this problem. You simply talk about what you want to treat, because, sometimes, wanting to know everything produces a counterproductive blockage.

Defining objectives: The third stage consists of defining what objectives you want to achieve, so that you can trace a path in which it is possible, as you go along, to check how close you are to your goal.

These objectives should have the following characteristics:

• Be positive: You only talk about what you want to achieve, and not about what you do not want.

• Be specific: You should provide as much detail as possible in each component.

• Be realistic: We will never reach an impossible goal. You can dream, but daydream.

• Be clear and precise: Objectives will always depend on the type of coaching. For example, a nutritional coaching may have the clear goal of losing weight, for which a goal of losing a couple of kilos per month may be set.

Observation: Observation is a very important stage, as it is here that the client becomes aware of everything he/she feels as the process progresses and, from this, his/her coach helps him/her to consider the different options that might have occurred to him/her before, but which he/she did not dare to try.

Feedback: Feedback is nothing more than a feedback process, it is the coach's ability to decode the information offered by his client and offer a plan of action according to this information