Integration Is the Name of the Game: Mastering Facilitating Client Growth

Fall is a really interesting time.

Here in the US, from September 1st right up until Thanksgiving, it can be MAYHEM.

Organizations are planning their budgets and putting their resources toward next year. (For coaches, that means this is often when we get hired; for speaking engagements, Q4 planning sessions, all of it.) And for families, it's just as full if not more. Kids are back in school, fall sports start up, and the holidays line up one after another.

Everything happens within about two and a half months. Then, after Thanksgiving, it gets very quiet.

Q4 is when things come to fruition. Which makes it one of the biggest growth periods of the whole year... and the perfect time to talk about the coaching core competency we're studying in IGNITE Mastery right now.

The Final Competency, for a Big Reason

Facilitating Client Growth is the eighth of the eight ICF Core Competencies. As the final competency, it’s built in a way to bring alllll that hard work together to pack an impact punch.

This competency integrates all of the others in service of what clients hire us for in the first place: GROWTH. Every competency that comes before it (presence, listening, curiosity, evoking awareness) leads here: the client walking away changed, and sustaining that change.

And here’s the real kicker that leaves many coaches doing great work but without the client results or sustained transformation:

Growth that isn't integrated doesn't last.

Clients who don’t experience sustained, integrated growth usually aren’t repeat clients. So the bottom line here is that if you want to create a business that builds on itself from the excellent work that you do as a practitioner, this is the core competency to master (ironically, it contains all other competencies, so really we need to master all the competencies. #SorryNotSorry!).

Integration Is the Name of the Game

When the calendar gets loud, our instinct (and our clients' instinct) is to manage better. Plan better. Find a new system, a faster strategy, a better tool, or, or, or.

But through this competency, I want to re-remind us, and the people we work with, of something important:

It's not a matter of managing or planning better. It's a matter of integrating what we already know into reality, using the tools we already have.

As coaches, our job isn't to hand clients more answers, because this also doesn’t create sustainable results. (This creates more cognitive surrender, where the client offloads their critical thinking, self-trust, and decision making to others.) Our role is to partner with them so what they've learned actually lives in their lives. Facilitating CLIENT Growth.

Before I get to the meat and potatoes, I want to remind us that this competency is about Facilitating Client GROWTH, not Facilitating Client ACTION. Consider the difference for yourself ;).

The 5 A's of Integration

These are the five pillars I use to support integration AND training this competency at the level of mastery required for killer work to be done and sustained. Yes, you’re getting the secret sauce, folks!!

And because growth doesn't stay in one lane, I look at each pillar three ways: with our clients, in our businesses, and in what I call "life's gym", where we practice being humans, partners, parents, and participants in our own lives.

1. AWARENESS. Awareness is the foundation of all growth, and what separates coaching from any other profession because the value as practitioners is to support NEW awareness that generates NEW action and growth. Without this, sustainable change can't take root.

Awareness questions to reflect on with your clients, your business, and your Self: 

With clients: What's shifting or emerging for them right now, and have you named it together? 

In business: What's changing in your clients, your offers, and your pipeline this quarter? 

In life's gym: What are you newly aware of in yourself this season?

2. ACTION. The step that brings awareness to life, and only comes AFTER the new awareness is generated. Otherwise, we’re taking the same action from the same frame of mind, and that often leads to the same results - if that’s the case, coaches aren’t need, so listen up! Aligned action is the bridge between the inner landscape and the outside world.

Action questions to reflect on with your clients, your business, and your Self: 

With clients: What's the one action that brings this new awareness into the real world? 

In business: What's the ONE aligned move for Q4? (Not ten. One.) 

In life's gym: What's one tiny step, aligned if uncomfortable, you can take today?

3. ACCOUNTABILITY. Integrity between what we say and what we do. And this one is subtle at the level of mastery, because we’re not placing ourselves in a position of authority. We’re partnering in a connected, thought-provoking manner to support the client to follow through in an easeful way.

Accountability questions to reflect on with your clients, your business, and your Self: 

With clients: What structures and support will hold the growth after the session ends? 

In business: What's holding your year-end commitments besides willpower? 

In life's gym: Who are your champions, cheerleaders, and challengers right now?

4. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. This is where integration lands. We don't fully own a change until we recognize it, especially if we’re in process. We often miss the forest for the trees, and this is where a neutral party can remind us of our growth, our progress, our spotlighted strengths, and our unique talents.

Acknowledgement questions to reflect on with your clients, your business, and your Self: 

With clients: Who are you becoming in this process, not just what you achieved/didn’t? 

In business: Have you celebrated this year's wins before planning next year's? 

In life's gym: What haven't you given yourself credit for yet?

5. AGENCY. ALL our work as leaders and coaches sit within offering agency to our clients so they can step into their own self-leadership. We are offering a reclaimed choice, emphasizing that the growth belongs to the client.

Agency questions to reflect on with your clients, your business, and your Self: 

With clients: Where are you partnering, and where are you (lovingly) taking over? 

In business: What's truly yours to decide, and what have you defaulted to? 

In life's gym: What are you choosing right now, on purpose?

With awareness comes responsibility, with responsibility comes choice, and with choice comes change. THAT'S integration in action.

So, What's Ready to Be Integrated?

Q4 is a huge growth period. Things are coming to fruition whether we're ready or not. The question is whether we let them pass through us, or let them change us.

So let me ask you this...

As everything comes to fruition this season, what do you (and your clients) already know that's ready to be integrated?

If you want to go deeper, join me at ICF Philadelphia's Coaching & Tech Week, where I'll be presenting Facilitates Client Growth in the Age of AI on Tuesday, October 20, 12:00 to 1:30 PM ET. 

Onward!

With love and mastery,

Lisa