The magic of coaching starts after the session

The magic of coaching is not always what happens in the session. Sometimes it begins afterwards. The conversation may be the spark. A new question appears. A different perspective. A sentence stays with you slightly longer than the others. Then Teams closes, the laptop goes away or you leave the room and return to everyday life. And that is where another part of the process begins. Ideas settle. Something that felt abstract during the conversation starts acquiring meaning. You make a small decision. You do something differently. Or perhaps, for a few days, you do absolutely nothing — except notice.

The space between action and outcome

I was reminded of this recently in a completely different context. I was waiting for the result of the DP-800: Microsoft Certified: SQL AI Developer Associate exam. I took the exam in beta, which meant there was no familiar: exam → click → score. Instead, there was: exam → … … → … … → waiting. Rationally, I knew there was nothing else I could do. The exam had been taken. The answers had been submitted. The work was done. All that remained was to wait. Trust the process sounds excellent until the process removes your ability to do anything about it. 😉

Waiting was harder than studying

While preparing, there was always one more thing I could do. Read another resource. Check the documentation. Test another solution. Review another topic. Waiting offered no such comfort. And somewhere in that waiting I realised something that also feels very relevant to coaching: the gap between action and outcome is not empty space. Not seeing progress does not mean that nothing is happening. Knowledge is settling. Experience is integrating. Emotions are changing. Perspective is shifting. Some things become clearer only after we stop actively trying to process them.

Not every change needs an immediate KPI

This may be particularly uncomfortable for those of us accustomed to projects, dashboards, outcomes and measurable progress. We want to know: Is it working? What is the result? What changed? What happens next? But some processes have latency. A good conversation on Tuesday may influence a decision the following Monday. A question may return during a walk three days later. A boundary that felt impossible for months may suddenly become obvious after several seemingly unrelated situations. Not everything happens during the session. And it does not need to.

And the result?

Eventually it arrived. 🎉 I passed. Of course I was delighted. But the weeks of waiting gave me something else too: a reminder that growth is not always visible at the exact moment it is taking place. Sometimes the outcome arrives later than the work. Sometimes confidence arrives later than action. Sometimes an answer arrives only once we stop trying to force it. The session may be the spark. The transformation? That often develops quietly in the background.

Keep learning.
Keep building.
Trust the process.

And no — this is still not the finish line.

Explore coaching through change and the space between “not anymore” and “not yet” →