The Single Most Effective Way to Increase Commitment and Accountability
Posted on November 17, 2009 at 10:33 am by: Kurt
In last week’s blog post, Stephan wrote about the how and why of a simple coaching agreement. The idea is that for coaching to work, you need to put a system or process in place to make sure you and your coach (or client) actually meet for your planned sessions. Yet a common problem expressed by coaches is that their clients often miss their sessions or fail to follow through on their commitments.
My question, then, is “What does science have to say about this problem?” As it turns out, quite a lot. And the good news is that almost all of these “problem” behaviors – missing sessions, failing to complete assignments, being late, etc., can be solved by improving just ONE character trait: self-regulation. So important is this one trait that Florida State University psychology professor Roy Baumeister has called self-regulation the “master virtue”, that is, the one that controls your actions in almost all other areas of your life.
The Marshmallow Test
To see why this is so, we need to go back about 40 years, to a very simple experiment by psychologist Walter Mischel. Mischel seated several young children in front of a plate on which a marshmallow was placed. He then left the room, instructing them not to eat the marshmallow until he returned. He then measured how long each child held off eating the marshmallow. The surprising thing about the study didn’t come until several years later, when he found that the amount of time the person waited as a young child correlated highly with personality traits several years later in life. These traits included reliability, perseverance, and school achievement. In fact, the children who held out the longest had SAT scores that averaged 210 points higher than the others. Indeed the “marshmallow test” is better at predicting success later in life than just about any other measurement, including IQ and socio-economic status.
Self-Control in Action
Here’s a TED video that discusses the Marshmallow Test and shows some hilarious footage of children employing a variety of delaying tactics to avoid eating the marshmallow.
The Master Virtue
What, then, does the marshmallow test actually measure, and why is it so powerful at predicting personal achievement? You may have guessed by now that the test is really measuring a personality trait called self control, also known as “willpower”, “self-regulation”, “delayed gratification”, etc. The reason it’s so important across so many domains of life is that it acts as a regulator, holding back our desire to do what we want to do but shouldn’t. People with high degrees of self control succeed because they are able to forego junk food in favor of fruits and vegetables, resist playing video games when they should be studying, and get out of bed instead of hitting the snooze button.
Since Mischel’s famous experiment, researchers have spent a lot of time investigating this powerful trait, trying to figure out how it works, and how it can be improved. Baumeister has found that not only is self-regulation vital to success, but that it can be improved by consistently “working out” your self control system, much like a muscle can be strengthened by pumping iron. Moreover, increasing one’s self-control in one area of life (say, by committing to floss every day for six weeks) will naturally increase your self control in all other areas of your life. This is why he calls it the “master virtue”.
Improving Self-Control
So given its immense importance in life, how do you actually increase your self-control? Here’s a simple yet effective activity that you can start doing today with your coaching clients.
- Take the self-control test. Like anything else, an essential component to increasing any behavior is to measure it. Roy Baumeister has been kind enough to let me post his brief Self Control Scale (SCS) questionnaire. Just click on the box to the right to download it. I recommend taking the test (which only takes a minute to do) before any self control improvement program, so you can measure your progress over time. Keep in mind that the client answers the questions, but the coach needs to calculate the score. The first form (Self-Control Test.pdf) contains the questionnaire, while the second form (Self-Control Test Scoring.pdf) describes how to score it.
- Choose one behavior that requires self control that your client would like to improve. Ask your client to commit to performing the behavior regularly for a period of six weeks. Some good suggestions include flossing every night, running twice a week, committing to show up for all meetings on time, etc. The critical factor is that the target behavior MUST be one that requires some degree of willpower, self-control, etc. Something inherently pleasing like “spend an hour a day reading” won’t have the same effect. Have the client write down the goal and tell them you will be holding them accountable during each of your regular coaching sessions.
- Take the self-control test again. At the end of the six week period, most behaviors will have become automatic if your client has been performing them as required. Have them take the SCS questionnaire to see if there has been an improvement to the clients overall self-control, and then pick a different behavior to tackle for the next 6-week period. Keep repeating this process every six weeks, making sure to record the client’s SCS score each time.
Not only will this exercise help your clients improve on specific behaviors each six-week period, but by focusing on behaviors that require self control you will be increasing their global self-control as well. This can be verified by tracking their SCS scores over time. Good luck, and have fun!
Not taking the time to coach? The how & why of a simple Coaching Agreement
Posted on November 5, 2009 at 1:03 pm by: Stephan
You understand the benefits of coaching and you want to be held accountable to your weekly action plan. You find a coach or coaching partner but you keep missing your coaching sessions. Or even worse, if you’re the coach, the coachee keeps missing the scheduled sessions.
It’s frustrating and disappointing.
Like anything, coaching only works if you do it. So how do you make sure coaching doesn’t become just one more thing you should be doing in your already busy life?
Part of the answer is to form an agreement (download a copy using the icons to the right) – what I call the Declaration to Coach – between the coach and coachee and here is a quick guideline for crafting the simplest agreement to make you stick to the coaching.
1. Coach for a pre-determined amount of time
Start your coaching by specifying a duration that you will commit to coaching. As humans, we are hard-wired for starts and stops caused by seasonal changes. Farmers work during the growing season and rest in the winter. The semestered school system that we are all familiar with is similar. The first weeks of the semester start off easy and they are followed by intense exam periods. In most coaching relationships, there will be some early stages of exploration and goal setting followed by intense efforts to meet your deadlines.
As a minimum, I suggest coaching for at least 8 weeks although 12 is a better amount of time to experience and verify the results. And if the coaching is going really well and you are getting good value, you can always start up again or extend it for another fixed amount of time.
Please note that a lot of coaches and coaching programs advocate coaching for 6 months or more. I’ve even seen 3-year programs. That’s great because it forces you to make a bold commitment but the programs include structured exercises, review periods, and feedback cycles to keep the coaching exciting and new.
What you want to avoid is no end-date at all. You don’t want to coach for an underdetermined amount of time. Like a SMART goal, you want your coaching to be time-related and focused.
Just make sure that during a lengthier coaching commitment, there is enough variety and flexibility in the coaching that it doesn’t become exhausting or boring. The best way to do that is to tie the coaching to a specific goal.
2. Use coaching to achieve a goal
95% of coaching occurs between the sessions. If you are not committed to taking action every week, the coaching will become a waste of time for you and your coach. The best way to ensure consistent progress and stimulating coaching conversation is to create goals that coincide with the end date of the coaching.
When I start coaching with a client, one of the first things I ask them is to determine their top three objectives for the coaching. Usually they say things like:
- get in shape
- make more money
- get a better job.
These are great starting points to creating specific, measurable, attractive, realistic, and time-sensitive goals that can be achieved within a 2-month, 3-month, or even 6-month time frame.
Here are some sample goals that can be derived from higher level objectives.
Objective: Get in shape
Potential Goals:
- train for and participate in a 5 or 10 mile race
- lose 10 pounds by eating healthier and working out regularly
- sign up for a dance class
Objective: Make more money
Potential Goals:
- Save x dollars each week for y weeks
- Make at the minimum 5 sales calls a week
- Spend an hour a day following the stock markets
- start your own business
Objective: Get a better job
Potential Goals:
- Quit my current job by the end of next month
- Send out at least 3 resumes each week
- Apply for post-secondary education
- Attend a professional development workshop
If you can’t think of a specific goal that you want to achieve, spend some time in the first session(s) to brainstorm some goals. Even if the goal you set is not addressing the biggest “pain” in your life, by achieving it you will improve your self-discipline and generate an uplifting sense of accomplishment that will positively affect other areas of your life. And ultimately, setting goals will give the coaching more purpose and ensure that you show up for your scheduled sessions.
3. Choose a consistent time and place to coach
What’s a more convincing statement? I’ll write a blog post by noon next Tuesday – or – I’ll write a blog post next Tuesday morning after I get out of the shower and before I eat breakfast. I hope you said the second
statement.
What makes it convincing are the details, specifically time and place. I told you what I would do, when I would do it (time), and where I would do it (place). 
Researchers have discovered that we can follow through on intentions with much greater success if we consider future place and time. Notice that I stated that I would write the blog post some date out in the future after my shower. Even if I forgot that I made that commitment, I am likely to remember it while taking a shower because the act of showering will trigger my memory.
Now what if I said I would write a blog post every Tuesday morning after showering and before breakfast? I ask the question because coaching is not just a one time thing. To answer the question I need to consider whether the place and time can be maintained from week to week. Is it realistic to expect that I will be home to shower every Tuesday morning with time to write a blog post afterward? Maybe. Maybe not.
The upside of choosing a consistent time and place is that it is easy to remember. The downside is that you need to verify that you have chosen a time and place that can be repeatable and makes practical sense given your daily schedule.
Personally, I like to do all my coaching between 8am and 10am on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays because during those times the office is quiet, I rarely have meetings, I am awake and alert, and it follows my morning bike ride. Furthermore, I don’t like to have firm commitments on Mondays and Fridays because I like to know that on short notice, I can take a day off and book a long weekend or spend the whole day doing important, non-urgent activities without interruption. (If you are familiar with the The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, important, non-urgent activities are also known as quadrant 2 activities).
So choose a place and time that works for you and your coach or coachee. If you like mornings, do mornings. If you like afternoons, do afternoons. If you like the park, coach at the park.
As a side note, I prefer to coach in person when it is practical to do so. The 2009 ICF Client Study reveals that 60% of clients prefer coaching in person too. If you can meet in person, I recommend it because there’s something nice about being able to look someone in the eye. I wouldn’t say it is better than coaching on the phone. It’s just different.
4. Print and Sign the Agreement
Ink your “John Hancock” onto paper. This makes it official. This makes it real.
Download a Coaching Agreement
For your convenience, we’ve provided the simplest, most effective coaching agreement possible. It includes everything discussed in this blog. We’ve provided it as a PDF as well as in .doc format so you can edit it to suit your needs. To download the files, use the links below or the icons found in the box above.
The simplest, most effective coaching agreement – in Word (.doc)
The simplest, most effective coaching agreement – as a PDF (.pdf)
