The 4 Keys to Facilitating (Client) Transformation
- lpachence
- Nov 11
- 4 min read
November: The Season of Integration and Harvest
November symbolizes many things in American culture:
It’s the month where we begin to harvest what we’ve been cultivating all year - the ideas, the relationships, the growth, the lessons.
Before the stillness of winter arrives, there’s a natural call to pause, integrate, and ground.
It holds the final stretch of running to close out the year before the holidays hit
It’s a season of abundance and gratitude, especially if you have kids involved in school activities
And much like the seasons, coaching follows the same rhythm.
This month, as I prepare to lead the final ICF Philadelphia Coaching to the Core session of the year focused on Core Competency #8: Facilitating Client Growth, I’ve been reflecting deeply on what this actually means.
Growth Is Not the Same as Action
Too often, as leaders and coaches, we equate growth with doing - results, data, metrics, bottom lines.
We measure progress in tasks completed, boxes checked, or systems implemented. This is a useful, yet masculine and capitalistic framework - not good or bad, just limiting in that it’s not applicable everywhere and for everyTHING. But facilitating growth is not about facilitating action, it’s about facilitating transformation. Meaning, there are other measurables to consider besides “the bottom line”.
Action is movement. Growth is evolution.
Action is what you do. Growth is who you become in the process of what you do.
Both are important but they’re not the same.
When we focus only on action, we can easily get lost in the weeds. Our attention stays on outcomes, deliverables, performance, and the next the next the next (goal posts for action always move, once we’ve delivered on the one prior). But coaching mastery asks us to hold something deeper:
How is this action aligned with BOTH my personal purpose and the organizational vision?
What awareness is emerging that will change how we show up?
Where is growth wanting to happen beyond the doing?
What’s the experience I’m wanting to have on the other side of my goals, that isn’t currently possible?
Great leadership, and great true coaching, requires us to hold both the doing and the becoming.
The Four A’s of Facilitating Growth
Whether you’re coaching a client, leading a team, or reflecting on your own evolution, there are four essential stages of growth:
1. Awareness – The foundation of all growth. Without awareness, sustainable change cannot take root. “Looking back in the last [6 months] [30 minutes], what’s shifting or emerging?”
2. Action – The step that brings awareness to life. Aligned action bridges insight and impact. “What is the breakthrough action to take that’s aligned with where you’re going and who you’re becoming?”
3. Accountability – The structure that sustains change. Accountability ensures integrity between what we say and what we do. “What might get in the way of your commitment here?” “What’s needed to sustain this awareness and action in the face of circumstances or resistance?”
4. Acknowledgement – The celebration and recognition of growth. This is where integration happens, where we reinforce trust, confidence, and motivation. “What can you acknowledge in yourself that’s supported this growth and progress?”
These four elements are cyclical, not linear. As coaches, we hold both the micro (the growth in each session) and the macro (the growth across the full coaching arc).
As coaches, we need to embrace and welcome this truth:
“Where there’s growth, there’s resistance.”
Resistance is a natural companion to transformation. It’s the voice that says stay safe, stay comfortable, don’t change. And this is exactly why coaches exist, to help our clients stop stopping when they stop.
Growth requires courage. It asks for awareness, action, accountability, and acknowledgment in equal measure. It demands that we, as coaches, continue doing our own work of self-mastery.
Because we can only take our clients as far as we’re willing to go ourselves.
As we close out the year, I invite you to use November as your own harvest season. Reflect on:
What awareness did I cultivate this year?
What actions have been most aligned with my purpose?
What structures or systems supported my accountability?
And most importantly, what growth am I ready to acknowledge and celebrate?
In a world that glorifies constant movement, integration is the quiet superpower.It’s the moment when learning becomes wisdom, and action becomes identity.
Here’s to facilitating not just action but authentic, sustainable growth.
Join Me Live – Coaching to the Core #8: Facilitating Client Growth
Thursday, November 20th | 12:00–1:15 PM ET
Hosted by ICF Philadelphia, this final session of the year explores how coaches can hold space for transformation, not just motion. We’ll dive into awareness, accountability, acknowledgment, and the beautiful resistance that signals true growth.
Here is the link: https://icfphiladelphia.com/events/coaching-to-the-core-session-8-facilitates-client-growth/
Whether you’re a coach, a leader, or simply a human in evolution, I offer you this:Growth doesn’t always look like movement. Sometimes it looks like stillness, reflection, or surrender.
This November, may you harvest your progress, integrate your lessons, and give yourself credit for how far you’ve come.
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