In the book co-written with Maggie João, “Coaching and Supervising Through Bereavement”, there is a sub-chapter entitled “The Ill Coach”. Here we describe how often coaches have not thought about what would happen if they died or became incapacitated in some way (permanently or temporarily) and how that might impact on their clients and a coach’s family. In the counselling world, it has not always been a large part of their initial training, but they are still some way ahead of the coaching profession on this score.
We often talk about how to do endings with coaching clients in their sessions but rarely think about the ultimate ending for us because sometimes it is tied up in fear and the taboos still surrounding death.
However, your demise or incapacity whilst still operating as a coach could be a real burden to family at an extremely difficult time. Anecdotally there are instances of clients contacting a coach’s family member enquiring after the coach or even wanting information about what happens to the fee they have paid up front! Not very pleasant for the bereaved family. I certainly don’t want my husband to have to deal with clients and see things on social media, on top of dealing with his own grief and long-term health issues.
It’s also not fair or ethical to leave clients wondering what happened to you especially if some of them could be quite emotionally affected by your death. It could be that some of your clients are particularly vulnerable right now because of significant changes in their own work/life.
Another concern that has struck me after the recent death of a number of coaching colleagues is that sometimes it’s not good timing to start thinking about these professional wills when you’ve already become ill, either from a physical capacity or an emotional willingness perspective. It can feel more real at these times and therefore fear, and denial can creep in.
A coach who I was supervising had known for quite a while that she had an illness and we discussed at length in supervision her increasing sense of mortality and about how and when to inform clients. Do you tell them when you first become ill? What if it’s nothing serious and you recover? How much are you willing to share with clients something quite personal? Is there a different approach if you are given a terminal diagnosis? How much do you want to have “ending” sessions with your clients in preparation and help them to source other practitioners? Unfortunately, my supervisee resisted telling some clients/colleagues and even after her death many people only heard about it via professional body tributes.
All the above is also predicated on the fact that you would have time to put something in place but none of us know whether a sudden event may happen to us.
Also, when we start to think about it there is quite a lot of information and data that we hold about our clients as well as all the other items that go alongside running a coaching practice.
So, in this blog I am talking about making a Professional Will in a similar way to making a Personal Will (you do have one of those don’t you?) so that everyone is clear what your wishes are, and it makes the tidying up of business affairs as easy as possible. Sometimes you may hear these wills called therapeutic wills or business wills (e.g., for accountants and lawyers).
The choice is yours if you want to do the will yourself using a template or whether you want to source a professional organization to do it for you (it can include a cost.)
So, who/what are the essentials?
- You the coach or supervisor, and your caseload of clients
- Who are you going to name as a Professional Trustee or Executor to carry out your wishes/instructions? E.g., a fellow coach or other business professional.
- Next of kin or emergency contact (this is the person who will likely know when something has happened to you) – are they aware of what you have in place for your death/incapacity so they can contact your designated named contact/trustee?
From a best practise aspect, the Joint Global Ethical code of both the AC and EMCC says:
Members will prepare clients for the ending of the service including having a
service continuity plan if the member is unexpectedly unable to complete.
This sounds vague and could apply to many things and perhaps gets misinterpreted by coaches?
So irrespective of whether you choose a DIY route or go with a professional will writer, who needs to be informed?
- Clients – coachees, supervisees, possibly organisational contacts e.g., sponsors, commissioners, and if doing associate contracts then coach consultancies who you work with.
- Your supervisor and other colleagues
- Membership bodies e.g., coaching, training, etc
- Website and social media - Website homepage message and eventual closure
- Subscriptions e.g., zoom, directories, resources (magazines, newsletters)
- Email accounts- do you want an autoresponder, so clients’ emails don’t go unanswered?
- Document storage
- Online calendars
- Accountants, VA’s etc
Some experts in this field advise having two trustees especially if you are going for a DIY option and are in a reciprocal arrangement with a fellow coach. The reason for having two trustees is simple. If you die first, then hopefully your fellow coach will perform their duties as you agreed between you but unfortunately this means they would no longer have you to execute their instructions. Having two trustees also means you could possibly split the work and give the more digital/technical parts to someone who wasn’t necessarily a coach.
Bear in mind whether you want to leave information about an alternative coaching/supervision practitioner your clients could go to instead of you. These practitioners would need to know and agree to being named and of course your client doesn’t have to use them as it will be their choice.
There are companies out there offering specialist executor services for counsellors and coaches, so this doesn’t have to be costly (i.e. going to solicitor)
A good option is someone who already understands the nature of our work such as www.makeyourclinicalwill.com
Another good source of information is an article called 'Exit Strategy' (Vol 14 (4), pp40-43 in Coaching at Work by Eve Turner https://www.coaching-at-work.com/2021/06/29/exit-strategy/ this will help you to reflect on what’s best for you and your situation.
If you would like an outline template to get started yourself then please email me for an example at julia@sparkcoachingandtraining.co.uk