Coaching with NLP For Dummies®

Formulating the Desired Agenda

As I discuss earlier in this chapter, the intake session allows both client and coach to get a sense of how they work together and see what's happening in all facets of the client's life. After intake, the actual agenda becomes the focus of work. Coach and client keep coming back to the agenda, usually with a mix of work and home-life content.

Refining agendas

Some clients want to complete the intake forms in advance of a session, others prefer to work through them in person with the coach. Whichever is the case, go through the forms with your client in person to get a shared understanding of the client's starting point. Then both parties can keep a copy in paper form or an electronic version. You need to keep these documents confidential.

Initially your clients' agendas will state the core aims they want to work on, with simple measures of the present state and desired state at the end of the contract. Early on clients need to articulate to you the changes that they want to experience and express a broad sense of what their lives will be like when changes happen. They are now engaged in creating a new possibility.

Accept that the goals may seem a little vague at the initial meeting. Your focus is to create structure and focus for the goals, so clients aren't overwhelmed by all the possible things they could be doing. The NLP concepts in Chapter 7 ...