Setting the coaching agreement (or T-GOALS) at the beginning of each coaching session is an ICF Core Competency that is required by every Professional Coach at every level of coaching from beginner to expert.
The coaching agreement offers the most efficient path to uncovering what the client wants, why it’s important to them and why now, what they want to achieve and what they believe is in their way of what it is they want. Without the Coaching Agreement, sessions often meander like a rudderless ship and coaches are often pursuing areas that may be interesting to explore but do not serve what the client wants, because they didn’t bother to ask!
The coaching agreement ensures you uncover the client’s agenda, at the start of the session and you manage the session direction according to what they want rather than what the coach thinks would be best.
We recommend while learning to create the coaching agreement, you ask the questions as they are written. When you become more skilled, you can begin to make it your own. If you change up the questions too much in an attempt to make them your own, they no longer elicit the information they are designed to elicit, and as a new coach, you won’t know why the session meandered around. To make the Coaching Agreement your own, simply be yourself, naturally responding to the client as they answer your questions. You may ask clarifying questions as needed, acknowledge and validate as appropriate and expect that your clients will respond very well to the professional approach you bring to their every session starting with the Coaching Agreement.