Coach as Instrument: How Long is Too Long to Work with A Client?

This Week's Attunement

“The arc of human development is long.”
— Dr. David Drake

How do you know when your work with a client is done?

If you have a contract or an agreement with an end date, there may not be much doubt about when the work ends (especially if someone besides the client is paying). But if you don't have a hard end date when working with a client, how do you know when the work is done, and how do you know when your work with a client may be going on too long?

As you can hear in the framing of the question, there's a bit of an embedded judgment about the "right amount of time" to work with a client. That's intentional on my part, perhaps because I've felt this judgment from others.

You see, I tend to work with clients for very long periods of time. I'm sure this is due to the target market I've intentionally selected: CEO/Business Owners. When working with this segment, the work is both personal and professional. The company pays for the coaching, and it comes out of the client's pocket because they own the business. So as long as the client is benefitting, they keep paying.

And when I say "long periods of time," I mean many years. My longest running client has worked with me for more than 15 years. With one exception, I've worked with all my clients for more than five years now. It's incredibly rewarding to see the long arc of human development come to fruition in my clients.

In the 19 years I've been coaching, I've often heard coaches say some version of "When you've worked with a client more than (X period of time), it's no longer coaching" (there's that embedded judgment). I don't know why coaches feel this way, and I know many do.

Yet, the ICFs own definition of coaching is "partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential." If that is coaching (finances aside), why would that end?

Perhaps it would end because a client no longer wants to maximize their personal and professional potential. Or maybe it would end because the coaching is no longer thought-provoking or creative.

Of course, I've had most of my client relationships end. The client may feel they've gotten enough from the work, or perhaps they are looking for a coach to lead or prescribe more or take them through some kind of "program" (which isn't me), or perhaps we weren't a good fit in some way, or perhaps their benefit from the work petered out. All of that is OK and natural.

The clients I still work with continue to want to maximize their potential and continue to find the coaching to be thought-provoking and creative. And what that's required from me is a constant process of personal growth.

Like most coaches, I love learning and exploring new approaches because of my curiosity. More than that, though, I keep learning and growing myself so that I can keep up with the pace of growth of my clients (which can sometimes astound me).

So how long is too long to work with a client?

Perhaps coaching "too long" occurs when the client is no longer growing. Perhaps coaching "too long" occurs when the relationship is more for the comfort of both than for maximizing potential. And that's all OK.

And for me, what this means is that if I want to see the impact of coaching on the arc of a life, that means working together for a long period of time.

And to do that, I've got to constantly push my growth edge and continue to look inward for what wants to expand and heal.