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In the first three posts of this four-part series, we defined what effective coaching entails—and what it doesn’t. In our first post, we established that the role of a coach is to make someone succeed beyond what that person could achieve on his or her own—often referred to as breakthrough performance. Next, coaches must drive all conversations toward action. Additionally, coaches must broaden the perspectives of those being coached to identify breakdowns and opportunities.

But what happens after goals have been reached and achieved?

It’s Never “One and Done.”

Few companies, athletes, or business people are singularly focused on just one event. After all, when football teams win the Super Bowl, they don’t hang up their cleats and disband the following year. With high-performing business people, it is much the same story—we are continually motivated by the next challenge, result, and success.

This is why coaching after the event is crucial. Effective coaching must be fluid, adaptable, and evolving. Some initiates will exceed their intended results while others may not. The role of an effective coach is to work with those being coached to devise new possible actions, in light of intended and achieved results.

Life Happens

Coaching sessions are intended to be powerful, provocative encounters that drive actions and results. But life happens in the world of the client, especially when the coach is not there.

This is often why coaches will often engage in debrief sessions—360 assessments and reviews—wherein effective and non-effective strategies and tactics can be expanded upon for future goals, or completely thrown out if not effective.

A good coach will ask all the right questions to give their client a report on what happened, regardless of the outcome, not an interpretation of what happened. By using this as a real-time metric, behaviors and actions can be adjusted for maximum impact.

Helping clients achieve breakthrough results should be the goal of any effective coach. But knowing what it takes to get there will not only expand your own skillset but can also lead to transformations in your ability to operate as a trusted and capable leader to those with whom you partner.