3 Reasons Not To Use The Resilience Dynamic For Coaching  

Transparency For Fit – Criteria for Choosing A Coaching Partner

How do you know whether one supplier is going to be better than another for coaching, and coaching for healthy, high performance in particular? After all, that’s what resilience is all about – achieving both performance and wellbeing, without compromising either.

The coaching you seek may be for your leaders and managers, for teams and/or individuals.

How do you decide? One of the ways is for us, as providers of coaching, to tell you openly where they are not the best fit for you. This article aims to do that for the Resilience Dynamic Coaching services.

There are three core reasons where we find we do not do our best work. We seek to ensure we don’t get caught out – instead we clarify these areas before starting the work, and if the task is not for us, we say so.

Reason 1: The Line Manager Doesn’t See It As Their Issue 

This is an issue of who is responsible. It arises when a ‘presenting issue’ with an individual or team is the reason behind the coaching, with the expectation that the coaching work will resolve it, without implication of the line manager to take up responsibility for their part in the issue or resolution.

This can be true for all coaching, but we experience it more often in resilience coaching.  Maybe commissioners believe that issues related to stuck behaviour, overwhelmed-ness or wellbeing are too tricky, and they call in the experts to ‘sort it’?

One of our standard questions when discussing coaching initially with a commissioner is:

‘What is your part in the issue/work to be done?’

It can be a surprise for commissioners to be asked. For those who understand that the intention is genuinely enabling, they normally step up and into their part in the coaching, whether that be in engaging in opportunities for the client to demonstrate the new skills or attitudes desired by the organisation, or whether it’s in feedback, or it’s a behaviour contract between manager/client to foster the conditions for the client’s success.

What of those commissioners that refuse to engage in their part of the system affecting the client? If it’s clear they are throwing the issue to us as coaches, we just don’t take on the work.

The Resilience Dynamic as a standard will engage with coaching in any circumstance where the parties involved genuinely want to work together to foster both high performance and wellbeing. We use 3 or 4-way contracting, where we all – commissioner, client, coach and possibly HR – outline the scope and objectives of the coaching contract, and verify that they are indeed actionable, evidence-able and appropriate. If not, we all work through to improve them, resulting in a clear contract in which we all can have confidence.

Reason 2: The Issue Is Described As A ‘Resilience Deficit’  

This is a little like Reason 1 above, but this time the focus is on the what of the problem itself, rather than who has responsibility for resolution. This is rather like being asked to fill in a pothole when our profession is actually to help someone build their own resilience pathway. 

‘Resilience deficits’? Nah. Not for us. 

The Resilience Dynamic works with leaders and managers with all sorts of ranges of resilience levels. Sometimes their resilience may be low, sometimes we work with leaders who are near Breakthrough. 

Whatever the resilience level, most people who are able to work can have agency to unlock their own resourcefulness, learn and grow their skillset, and put in a resilience practice to foster healthier, high performing habits. Resilience Dynamic coaches pace the work, that’s the real nub of our specialism. We start off with a realistic view, together with the client, of what is achievable and how to pace the coaching work. In the end, no matter the resilience level, clients achieve success.  (For more on what makes resilience coaching different, see here) 

Reason 3: Cheap and Cheerful 

This is about ‘how much’. You can expect to spend a minimum of £3,500, but most often in the order of £7,500 per person, for an individual coaching programme with us. If you are commissioning for C Suite executives, the cost will be higher. Team coaching programmes can be structured entirely differently, often with a cap on the total budget, to be drawn down according to the need of the whole team. Team Coaching budgets often start at the £7,500 – £10,000 mark. 

There are three drivers of this price: 

• Length of coaching 
• Materials support 
• Hourly price rate

Driver 1: Length of coaching

Normal 1-1 coaching needs a minimum number of sessions, with around 4-6 hours included in any programme; executive coaching will often be higher, with something like 12 hours included in the programme.  

With resilience coaching it’s normal to contract for 9-12 hours since resilience is systemic. Sessions are most often 90-120 minutes, so you are talking around 6 sessions. We are normally flexible about how these are drawn down, sometimes using a half-day for in-depth conversations, and other times 30 minutes for focussed work. The client and coach will unpack several layers and ‘re-knit’ them together so that the person remains psychologically safe throughout the coaching programme and ends up in a good place. This takes time.

So, if commissioning for resilience you need to be ready, as a rule, to go for 12 hours, or 6 sessions of 2 hours. The absolute minimum if working with a group of managers is 4 x 1-1 sessions plus 2 group coaching sessions.

You can commission the use of a single coaching debrief using Dashboard Solo (the Resilience Dynamic® Questionnaire and Debrief) as a module in a leadership programme. This gives any individual client a platform for self-knowledge and growth. Normally we find that commissioners ask us to offer the Resilience Dynamic® Questionnaire and debrief for all participants, together with a couple of masterclasses or workshops. As long as expectations are managed, and there is a route for specific support for anyone struggling, this minimum leadership programme coaching is excellent!  

Driver 2: Materials Support 

A small but important part of normal Resilience Dynamic coaching is the use of our Resilience Dynamic Dashboard® service: 

• For individuals, Dashboard Solo offers a means of in-depth self-assessment and debrief, based on our research. Clients are offered insight into their Secure/Neutral/Watch areas (for more information on Secure/Neutral/Watch insights see here). The Dashboard Solo material costs are included in all Resilience Dynamic coaching; the price is built into our charges.
• For teams, Dashboard Team offers a comprehensive suite of support materials, from individual self-assessments, aggregate team results, our Resilience Fundamentals eLearning training, and online tools associated with recommendations and for in-the-moment resolutions for resilience issues. Team Dashboard is an additional charge to the coaching wrap-around service. Material cost is £180 for the full year’s license, and teams can use the materials as they wish and as often as they wish throughout the year. Discounts can be made available for particular circumstances.
• For whole organisations who invest not just in self-assessment but also tracking productivity vs wellbeing drivers, Dashboard Enterprise is available. Pricing is available on request.

Driver 3: Behind the Resilience Dynamic price is our coaching expertise. What drives this?

Importantly, we invest significantly in our own resilience day-to-day to ensure we offer psychological safety no matter the circumstance. That means being very able to ensure no complicity with the client or the client system, being able to keep perspective, ensuring that there is always a resilience-forward build in the work. It also means stepping up and being more directive where the client is unable to keep themselves safe. Ethics ring strongly in our work.

The other investment is our continued learning. Resilience is multifaceted. It is complex. It is systemic. To ensure our service incorporates our best collective thinking and research, not only do Resilience Dynamic coaches invest in their initial 8-month training, we also undertake yearly CPD, peer group supervision and support, and a re-accreditation process every 3 years. (See why the Resilience Accreditation Programme costs £2,950.) That’s all quite a lot!

Whilst we absolutely honour special conditions around price, such as for the third sector, or the need for discounts due to extreme financial constraints within a client whom we work with, we charge a fair price for our expertise. That’s means we’re not the cheapest.  Bottom line? Don’t ask us to do work for £125 an hour, it’s not our bag.

Conclusion

We are very keen to work with you where there is a good fit. And we want to be honest with you when there isn’t. We do hope the 3 reasons where the fit is not great for us make sense to you:

• Reason 1: The Line Manager Doesn’t See It As Their Issue  
• Reason 2: The Issue Is Described As A ‘Resilience Deficit’  
• Reason 3: Cheap and Cheerful 

We look forward to working with you if the fit is great! And for those where the fit is not so great, we do wish you well.