The Coaching Cafe Podcast

The instant fail: What to avoid in coaching conversations

• Open Door Coaching

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So far in this Coaching Café series, we’ve explored what competent coaching looks like at the ACC and PCC levels. In this Podcast, we’re flipping the perspective and asking an equally important question: 

What constitutes an instant fail in a coaching conversation—or during a credentialing exam? 

This Podcast is not about fear—it’s about sharpening our coaching awareness. 

✨ What are the behaviours that assessors flag as “not yet competent” right away? 
✨ What coaching practices break the partnership—or move away from core competency? 
✨ How can we tighten up our coaching approach to avoid these common pitfalls? 

Join Brigitte Calvert, Open Door’s Learning and Development Manager and long-standing ICF assessor, as she shares insights from years of assessing coaching conversations across all levels. 

Hosted by Natalie Ashdown, this Café is your chance to: 
✔️ Learn what leads to an instant fail in ICF credential assessments 
✔️ Spot these pitfalls in your own coaching practice 
✔️ Make small, powerful changes that protect the coaching partnership and elevate your competence 

Whether you're preparing for credentialing or simply want to coach with greater impact, this is a Coaching Café you won’t want to miss. 

Let’s raise the standard—together. 

Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed the podcast please leave us a 5 star review wherever you listened to us! It helps promote the podcast to streaming services and other listeners.

Watch the webinar of this episode on YouTube or read the blog by visiting our website.

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[Music] Welcome to the Coaching Cafe podcast.[Music] Well it's a very good morning to some of you, a good afternoon and a good evening to those of you that are dining in live all around the world. We've just been finding out when you're all darling in front. Welcome to the Coaching Cafe. My name is Natalie Ashtam. I joined by the fabulous Bridget Calvert. Hello to you, Bridget. Hello now. How are you? How are everybody? Good to be here. It's really great. We're back after a couple of weeks. Great. So welcome back everyone. And today we are talking about the instant fail. So what we need to avoid doing in any coaching conversation and we're taking this from the perspective of the ICF performance evaluation, which I know a lot of you are interested in. So please feel free to jump in, ask any questions as we go along. Before we begin, we begin with the Eiffel Tower of Judicial Owners, the custodians on the land, on which we're all meeting today, the continuing connection to the land, borders and communities of Australia, our lands from all around the world, which you might be joining us from either live now or on your favourite streaming service. We pay our respects to them, their elders, past, present and emerging and elders from Indigenous communities from all around the world. Well, we have a lot to share with you today and we're particularly thinking about what constitutes an instant fail in any conversation actually. Now Bridget turned along because she does all of our coaching, listens to all of your coaching demonstrations and all of your coaching recordings, hundreds of them she's listened to, and she is an ICF accredited PCF examiner. So we want to understand what happens within the performance evaluation, the performance exam that might mean an instant fail. It's an opportunity of course for us to build engagement, create our community. So if you're new to the coaching cafe, welcome. We are all about creating engagement, a community, share-revolving experiences, having thought, provoking conversations and of course welcome back to everybody who is a regular. Please feel free to interact with us via the chat box as well. All righty. So we're talking about the performance evaluation and in our certificate for and in workplace and business coaching and our diploma of leadership coaching, our performance evaluation is built in. So if you graduate from those courses, then you have completed the performance evaluation, the coaching recording and the coaching demonstration of all of your skills and in particular the ICF core competencies. So for those of you that might be going for your ACC, PCC or MCC, whatever it might be, there is a lot of things that we need to be thinking about when it comes to our coaching demonstrations, but this is also a reminder that if we are to switch between different things like for example coaching and switch to mentoring in a performance evaluation, that would actually be an instant fail. So that's why I've called upon Bridget because you looked at so many and listened to so many coaching recordings and demonstrations and you've completed and signed off so many people's final performance evaluation. So I wanted you to come on the line today, Bridget and tell us what you're thinking, what you're listening for, what we all need to be aware of when it comes to the coaching that we do. So as you can see here for those of you that have access to the slides, the purpose of the evaluations to provide feedback, make you sure that we're aligning with the ICF competencies at whatever level we're going for, supporting the growth and development, make you sure that we are growing, developing, aligning with the competencies. But Bridget, let's jump into it if you don't mind. Sure. Do we and all coaches need to be aware of what's an instant fail? We've got some information here that you might like to share with us. Sure. Well first of all there's a couple of qualifiers that need to be acknowledged when you're doing your coaching conversation. So qualifiers sort of indicate whether or not a coaching recording meets the minimum requirements to be used. So two qualifiers, the first one is that the coach demonstrates alignment with the ICF code of ethics and the second one is that they are in consistent alignment with the role of coach. So for example, a qualifier will be marked as an instant fail. If for example the coach is not aligned with ICF code of ethics or if the coach misses clear evidence of an issue that's defined as a breach and if any of these behaviors are presented throughout the coaching demonstration, that would be an instant fail. So you must be aligned with ICF code of ethics so certainly make sure you're familiar with those as well as your qual competencies which we spoke about in the last couple of coaching cafes as well. So the second one being if the coach consistently stays in a role other than coach, for example, if you're teaching, you're advising, you're consulting, that would be an instant fail as well. Now that is assessed across the entire recording. So if for example in one of your demonstrations, hopefully not the final performance evaluation, the last one, but before if I hear it once, I'll pick it up as an opportunity for you to develop that and to not put it into your last recording because we don't want to hear any of that by the time you get to your final coaching performance evaluation. So you need to stay consistently in the role as coach. Yeah and I think the most important thing and the message here is that very senior coaches and coaches in the workplace are often called upon to do mentoring. That's what the person wants from them when we have an everyday conversations. The issue that we're trying to highlight here is that particularly if you are doing the performance evaluation or you're submitting a coaching demonstration or even in our day-to-day practice just be very conscious that if you are in the role as coach that you're in the role as coach and that means not mentoring means making sure that the code of ethics is in front of you. And I know that we've been debated a few times, Bridget, about that with people go, "But our boss coaching?" And I think we're mentoring really. So yeah. It's true and I do understand that in our workplaces you will be flipping hats and that's going to happen but you need to demonstrate your understanding of what coaching is. So that's what we want to hear. The rest in terms of your coaching performance evaluations must be in role of coach. Yes. So in the workplace we could flip between hats and the best thing to do as we would all do is to flag that or highlight that actually perhaps we're moving out of coaching into mentoring. I particularly think that's a more formal conversation that we're having. So that's something to be thinking about as well. Well thank you for highlighting that because that's the instant fail. Basically if we're in the role of the coach and we're not following the role of the coach or the ethics but there's other things that you were talking about and you've highlighted to students and to the broader population as we go along. But okay so they're not instant fails but they would be flagged as what we say is not yet competent. So I'm looking at the different the core competencies here as well. So what stands out for you, Bridget? Yeah. From that perspective. Sure. Well the last couple of weeks we spoke about core competency one, those demonstrating ethical practice which across the board we need to be doing and core competency two that embodying a coaching mindset which we talked about is more focused on in the exam, the written exam or the you know the exam part rather than your coaching demonstration recording although at PCC level it can also be picked up in core competencies four three to seven not specifically but essentially it can be included in that. Core competency number three establishes and maintains agreements where there might be a flag of not yet competent would be if you have there's a lack of agreement on coaching goals and the agenda for the coaching session. So if there's no agreement outlined that essentially is a not yet competent that's quite important that there is an agreement established and that that's maintained throughout your coaching conversation also to if the coach chooses the topic for the client. If the coach does not coach around the topic that the client's chosen and also that the agreement needs to occur early enough in the session to actually assist in framing framing that coaching conversation. So those four dot points there if any of them are highlighted that would be highlighted as a not yet competent and certainly would need to for your next coaching recording would need to flip that of course and you allow your coach to choose your your coach to choose your topic etc. I think what it sounds like to me when I hear and not yet competent is when perhaps the coach has several things that they want to talk about and then the coach says all right let's talk about that correct. So that's what we that's what we hear the coach has actually chosen which of these four or five things that we will carry on the conversation with and we call that the coach is choosing the topic and meeting the client down the path that they want to talk about and it's kind of rookie coaching we see that in the very beginning but for all of you experienced coaches on the line hopefully this is an awareness like that's what it does with me it's always raising awareness make you sure in our practice that we're letting this be coachy lead. Yep absolutely correct. Well let's go on to the other competencies we've got call competency number four and there's a number of things you want to share with us be. Yeah so call competency number four is cultivates trust and safety so what behaviors might be flagged as not yet competent here well if the coach demonstrates interest on their own views so the coach doesn't seek information from the client or maybe they disregard the client's thinking or contributions around a particular situation perhaps the coach is unsupportive or maybe a little disrespectful not that we see that often but certainly I want to add it in there anyway but also the coach's attention is on their own performance or on the demonstration of their own knowledge of a topic rather than fully focusing 100% on the client and the client's interest and their points of you and they're very good points that you point out their bridge because it again might seem obvious to the experienced coaches on the line and it's kind of it's a bit of a shock to me to hear you know the coaches attention is on their own performance but what happens and what we hear and I know that you hear this is that it becomes the coach sharing or their knowledge about the topic or the coach be you were telling me that you can hear that the coaches trying to somehow perform tell us a bit more about that it can what do you kind of hear around they're trying to perform they're trying to act good in a way or something well look I think it can be it can be challenging for experienced coaches or certainly when you're working in an environment where you have all the knowledge and the skills and the toolkit and everything that's that may support your your coach e but essentially you might get caught up in offering you know information or leading down a particular pathway because you have knowledge of the topic or you have more experience in that area and so therefore you've got this burning desire to offer it so it can be challenging for someone who has a lot of knowledge on a on a topic who works in that environment who has a lot of experience and skill to actually stay out of the space and ask a question with genuine curiosity and trusting that client or the coach he has the answer or confined the answer some way shape or form even if you have an answer that essentially we're staying out of that space and trusting that they can do it and I think the important thing just to make sure that our attention is honored here is that we're not saying oh you've been egotistical like I know everything you know the ego. What we're saying is that coaches often feel the genuine desire to share because they want to help and they want to make a difference so the intention is I've got information to share because of that I'm genuinely trying to help the person I genuinely know something then we say it's not that you can't share or make an observation it's just that when that gets in the way of the actual coaching and their thoughts and feelings and observations that's when we're moving out of the coaching space so we're not saying oh everyone's and you know got the ego involved I'm trying to prove myself and perform it's more about the intention there it's just already that intention get her away in the conversation I think that's right and this is where I often talk about our definition of help you know our definition of help when we're mentoring or when we're managing or supervising is quite different to our definition of help when we're coaching so what is our definition of help when we're coaching we trust that that person has the answer or confined to the answer for themselves and we need to stay out of that space and trust going with that growth mindset and trust that that person can or will find an answer for themselves thank you it's a very good point you make and it relates to our next competency which is around maintaining presence so what would you like to offer around that thing? So maintaining presence so essentially this is about being 100% focused and with the partnering with your your coach or your client in the moment so everything above counts for this as well everything we've just spoken about in terms of cultivating trust and safety is also important when it comes to maintaining presence but what might be flagged as a not yet competent right away would be if the coach is not responding to information that's offered by the coach it might be an emotion that's being shown and emotion verbal and non-verbal behaviors I've put those in brackets because that might be more relevant if you're looking at that diploma level PCC level coaching not so much at ACC certificate 4 level if I hear it or don't hear it rather it's what I'm not hearing I'll make mention of it but it's not as important at ACC level as it might be at PCC level so being unresponsive to information offered verbally by the client would be an example of not being present if you're seeing or hearing an emotion that you ignore and you just move on rather than acknowledging it and those verbal and non-verbal behaviors that we might see the things that we're witnessing or noticing in terms of tone of voice versus congruency with body language for example those sorts of things if we can actually see it yes and what comes up to me here to put this into the practical is for example if a client has expressed an emotion like it makes me feel really angry or I'm whether it's a pointed or really frustrated and then the coach continues with the conversation along the lines of something something like oh okay well we'll give in that how do you want to move forward so or or even not even saying given that don't okay well you said you wanted to achieve this goal what would you like to do about that yes so it's not it's not it's moving forward it's what I call stepping over or to liberately by the way but to liberately stepping over if it's not picking up on the nuances and they're just staring on with the conversation yes yep agreed or as we also said here consistently directing the conversation in the way that the coach thinks is interesting as well exactly as we've pointed out we're going through each of the core competencies again experienced coaches on the line an opportunity just to to raise awareness those of you that are less experienced are one of the opportunities to reflect on our practice as we go along you're listening to the Open Door Coaching Coaching Cafe podcast and for more information on programs run by Open Door Coaching head to our website and opendoorcoaching.com.au now back to the podcast. Core publicity number six bridge is about listening actively so what would you like to share here? Sure so listening actively behaviors that are flagged as not yet competent right away might include that the coaches aren't demonstrating listening that's focused on and responding to what the coach is communicating so obviously we want to respond in response to what the client or coach E is saying also to if the coaches responses are unrelated to what the client or coach E has offered or is trying to achieve would demonstrate a lack of active listening maybe the coach appears to be waiting to demonstrate some sort of knowledge about the topic or tell the client what to do about the topic and you can sometimes hear that when you're listening to recordings and you you can almost hear the coach wants to interject or say so they go to say something then the coach E says something but as soon as the coach E finishes then the coach will jump in and say something whether it's leading them down a particular pathway that might demonstrate that their knowledge would be suitable also the coach is not using the information presented by the coach E about themselves or about their situation to structure questions comments or observations in turn of that so we want to make sure that we're structuring questions comments or observations that actually are in relation to the information that's presented by the coach E about themselves or their situation yes and it's a very important thing that you're bringing up here and it actually relates to which Sarah has shared in a chat here be because the way that we listen and we respond to what the client is offering us and ask questions accordingly is what Sarah has shared that we might say yes I can hear that you're saying that you're angry actually I can feel it or I can see it so we're making the observation that I can see that you might that you're angry or I can feel it am I right you know so they're making an observation we might say something like I can I get the feeling that you're angry I can see that you're angry is that right is that what you're experiencing but if they say that they're feeling angry then yes that inquisitive tone might be to say something like that can be a really tough time if you're feeling angry that you have to carry on with your work so what would you like to do with that or what would you like to talk about is that something you'd need to explore or not any of these kind of inquisitive questions come out here as well absolutely 100% so thank you for pointing that out Sarah because it's a nice way of making an observation without getting into the space and saying oh I've often felt angry myself and this is how I responded so and we're not stepping over what the client is saying as well the point you make about offering an observation without fear of being wrong either this thing you maybe you've offered that and they might say oh no it's not it's not anger it's something else that's okay that's okay so what it does is it allows the coachy to then reflect on the observation you've made and think for themselves is that right is it no no that's not quite right it might be this that's perfectly fine you're moving that conversation forward and allowing your coachy to think further than what they did before you made the observation yes and I don't tend to and you can tell me what you do be but I don't tend to say oh it sounds like you're angry I would more say I notice there's a change in you I notice there's some strong emotions happening there hiding a feel about showing with me what's happening for you or what's going on for you so that's a really lovely question with curiosity not saying I can see your angry yes as as Sarah is pointing out as well it's given the person the opportunity to sense what their emotion is and to put a label on it rather than us labeling it as well correct yeah absolutely yeah and then of course when we're linking through to art they go ahead sorry no good you go I was going to say then if we're linking through to a very keen awareness then at PCC level or MCC level we would be perhaps asking a question around what's and what's causing that angle what is there a value is there a belief is there something that is that someone's dancing on is that something is feel comfortable to share so because of course they may not want to share so that's where we're evoking awareness about what knowledge beliefs ideas are coming up for them so if we're doing that that would be really competent coaching if we're not doing that depending on the level that would definitely be not yet competent that's that's right exactly so there is a difference of course between the ACC and the PCC development over time which is completely reasonable so yeah so in terms of that that core competency number seven the evokes awareness if the coach is instructing or sharing their own knowledge their beliefs or ideas again there seems to be a theme here that tends to run across a lot of core competencies in terms of sharing knowledge or beliefs or ideas if we're leading the client down a particular pathway and of course that includes if our questions and explorations are attending to our own agenda rather than the coach the the client's agenda that can be a subtle actually as wanting something for the coach coachy as well so our agenda is to make sure that they go on and achieve this that they're committed to doing something and that's what they want to do so my agenda is to make sure they do it and it's very subtle it doesn't have to be overt here the coach might start asking leading questions though to lead the coachy to what the coachy's good type of want which is fine but it's folding the space to be coachy led is what really comes up for me here exactly go ahead yeah oh and I was just going to say and then of course the coach's questions or observations keep the client in the moment rather than evoking new awareness new learnings and new insights so for example I would say we want to learn about the story teller rather than the story right so essentially around what are we sitting in in the we're just staying in this space in the moment but we want to stretch you know our clients a little bit further beyond where they've been thinking to a new place of thinking to a new place of awareness to new learnings and insights so if we're stuck in the one spot and we're asking about the story then that's not evoking awareness it's just telling the story essentially or repeating information yes and in our coaching demonstrations which are coming up that's what we're going to be focusing on over the next few weeks you'll actually hear how the coach does that not the negative but not the not yet competent that the competence so evoking awareness around the story and what the lessons are and is there a different way of thinking about it so that's really high quality competent coaching they're not yet competent what I'm hearing from you bridge is that a lot of the conversation is about the story actually so the majority of the coaching demonstration is unpacking the story as opposed to unpacking the awareness the learnings or the insights exactly exactly and again that will develop over time from that ACC level to PC seal at sea level and beyond but essentially yes it's you don't want to stay stuck in the one spot you want to move forward without cutting them off and I know it's a tricky thing to balance sometimes when there's a lot that the coach is wanting to share so that's where we're we're redirecting back to well at the beginning of the conversation you mentioned you wanted to achieve this so how would you like to move forward on that part of the conversation or if there's something else you'd like to tell you talk about how does what we're talking about relate to what you said you wanted to have a all of those are really nice redirections exactly exactly yes well let's take a look at the final competency and bring to what would you like to offer here sure so the core competency and number eight is facilitates client growth so if the coach sort of requires the client to use specific tools or take particular actions so we're offering this is what I want you to do or these are the actions that I want to take that would be leading the coach you down a particular pathway to take particular action or maybe the coach suggests actions or steps that really have no clear relationship to the client's agenda perhaps the coach does not invite the client to identify or explore the client's learning that can be applied to the future and I put in brackets their post session thinking and feeling because whilst actions is fine at that ACC level at PCC level or that diploma level we want to build upon actions and talk more about the thinking and the feeling as well as the coach not supporting the client to determine when or how to close the session so this is a common one where I might hear all right well our time's up now or that's that's we've come to the end of our time together so let's wrap up and so the client the coach the coach is taking the lead on closing the session rather than offering to the coach to do just that or you know it's where are they at at the moment or how would they like to close the session or is there anything else that's going to make it more complete for you those sorts of questions that help to close the session where the client can take that role yes and I would add to this also so they are beautiful questions that we can use at the end of a coaching conversation or even something like well given that we've got five minutes of our time how would you like to use this time what have you taken from our conversation so far how would you reflect on what you've learned all of those are really beautiful questions and we're getting the client to determine how they close the session exactly and the other thing that I notice also region you can share with us it feels well shouldn't feel but um shouldn't say feel not yet competent is is where the coach does all the paraphrasing and summarising at the end yes I agree with that and I think that I look I do hear coaches offering a summary at the end which is great that there's some really good active listening in there I feel like you know the coachy could be lifting the heavy weights there I think essentially asking the coachy to summarise now or perhaps you know what have you learned where are you at now with with our with our conversation compared to where you were at the start so getting the coachy to be summarising for themselves where they're at at the end the conversation is a better learning experience for the client then it is for the coach to do it for them so it's our preference in terms of what we wanted to hear and again it comes back to the coach not inserting themselves into the conversation even at the very end so that's where it links through to the not yet not yet competent I think the other thing since we talked about our strong emotion so we touched on that we might make an observation here actually that I get a sense that your things are sounding calmer or you're looking calmer or the breathing has changed how how are you feeling now given that we've talked this through so it is again this is where you started this is what happened this is where we are now it's giving even at the very end the opportunity to evoke that awareness in the coachy and then they get to describe in terms of facilitating their client growth how they are feeling more how they are summarising the situation yes exactly right and I also want to say that you know not one point here will elicit a instant fail this is this is not all with one one of these things happen that we've spoken about today is an instant fail it's a build-up of things so if I hear you know one thing only I'll make a point of that or point it out as feedback but essentially overall that's essentially what we don't want to do to elicit that not yet competent result well thanks Bridget it's been absolutely fantastic to learn from your experience over hundreds and hundreds of coaching recordings that you've listened to and performance evaluations that you have signed off so hopefully as I said if you're an experienced coach this is really drawing attention to us as professionals in our coaching practice and as you go along in your coaching journey even ourselves myself as an MCC coach I'm still drawing attention to how I follow in the ICF core competencies how I'm living and breeding those so thank you Bridget once again for the wonderful reminder and we look forward actually everybody to over the next coming weeks to hear these ICF core competencies in practice so you'll get to join us to do that as well thanks for listening to this episode of the Couching Cafe podcast you can watch the full video of this podcast on our website I'll put a link in the show notes we'll see you at the next Couching Cafe