Our experience with coaches of all levels of experience who are using the wheel is highlighting how important the contracting at the beginning is. It appears that we can all focus too much on trying to get a process right first time, rather than focussing on the client and letting the wheel do much of the work itself. In that spirit of serving all, we offer this advice:

  1. Always start with being human together: Connect. Build rapport and trust.
  2. Logistics – Discuss and agree the practicalities such as how many sessions, and how long the sessions will be. (Note that for the co-coaching as part of the Neil’s Wheel Introductory Experience, the minimum agreement is one 1 hour session with each partner. Feel free to discuss and mutually agree what you both may want beyond that). You may want to contract for additional time at the end of your coaching time (at the end of a session, and/or at the end of a series of series if that is what you choose to do) to reflect and debrief together on the experience.
  3. Preferences – ensure you understand how they like to be coached, what does and doesn’t work for them, are you OK to challenge them and if so how do they want you to do that, boundaries, permissions and the like.
  4. Move to the Wheel. If they have seen the Introductory video, and been part of an introductory call for the Neil’s Wheel Experience or similar, they probably don’t need anything repeated by you, and you can move straight to ‘How do you want to do this?’. They may of course have questions about the wheel that they want to discuss with you. And remember the mantra -“There’s no ‘one way'”. The essentials as coach are:
  1. Offer choice – how might they want to mark the wheel? Divide the segments?
  2. Use silence – give them plenty of space to think, draw, right. Less from the coach can be more to the client.
  3. Focus mainly on them as a person and their response to the Wheel, not the Wheel itself. For example, it can be hugely powerful to mention segments they might be avoiding, but do so in the spirit of focussing on them and their learning, awareness, integration etc. rather than trying to complete an exercise in using the Wheel.
  4. Know that the example and ‘Universal’ questions are just idea starters. They should not be used in a formal or formulaic way.

There’s another mantra – Let the wheel do the work. Coaches are consistently finding that the Wheel can do the ‘heavy lifting’. And many, of every degree of professional experience, find that very challenging. This may be greater if their experience has been that it was difficult to bring these topics to a client conversation. As coach, explore how little ‘work’ you really need to do using Neil’s Wheel. If there are not periods where you are quiet for at least 2-3 minutes whilst the client is exploring, discovering and playing with their wheel, you are probably doing too much. As Client, be comfortable with finding an appropriate and respectful way to ask your coach to ‘back off’ if you feel they are doing too much. The essence of the Neil’s Wheel experience is that it is a safe place to learn how to coach with the wheel, so done well this could be offering a really valuable lesson.

Coaches are also finding that using the Wheel with clients can be fascinating, and is causing them to reflect on their own wider coaching practices. This can be highly valuable. But don’t let attention on your own learning detract from attention on the client.

You may find that your client will miss whole sections of the Wheel. Or the session may be all about one or a few segments. Don’t worry. Let it unfold. There is no need to visit every section of the Wheel in a single session unless the client has asked for that. What we are noticing is that people are discovering profound things about themselves, and their connections with what’s important to them, and their ‘maps of the world’, and bringing the many parts of themselves and the world around them together in more harmonious ways, and often releasing huge energy, and this can be much more important for them than a list of actions. In one session, for example, noticing that the client had written in pencil rather than pen brought a whole world of insights. And looking at this the other way…sometimes an action list is actually all that they want! Notice if you have an attachment and need for ‘a profound conversation’ or similar. Simply dance beautifully with the client as they engage with their Wheel. You can trust yourself and coaching as an approach, and put the Wheel ‘on the table’, and give space, and simply enjoy what then happens.

We hope this helps.

Note 1: We want to evolve this advice. If you have a suggestion on how it can be improved for coaches to come who will be using Neil’s Wheel for the first time, please tell us 🙂

Note 2: Please don’t forget to share your co-coaching experience as coach (and coachee/client) using the online survey.

You can download these guidance notes as a pdf here.


Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash