Coaching… Co-creating????

Co-create is a term that I don’t completely understand.  If it means creating together it confuses me in the context of coaching relationship.  As a coach you define the relationship you are having with your client and as a client they define the relationship they have with their coach.  You choose your contribution as do they.  I accept that you influence each other’s perceptions of that relationship.  I think that things you say and do contribute to the interpretation and the acceptance of that relationship. The part you are not in charge of is the client’s past and present reality and how you fit into that.  You may say or do something that reminds them of something else that you have no clue about and they may begin to create illusions about you and the relaitonship they are having with you.

Better to define the relationship on your own terms with in their context.  Flexibility is needed to make the relaitonship work for you and for them but CO-CREATE? I’m not getting it. The relationship that will help “Make it so” (which is a phrase I love) has to be build on the premise that you are the professional and IN CHARGE or the process.  They are the client and IN CHARGE of the outcome.  Making it so comes from understanding and moving forward through the process.  Speed, focus, level of commitment are variables and allow the traveler to control aspects of the journey but the coach has to maintain control of the fact that a journey is occurring and sitting still is only acceptable for rest and contemplation.

I may be taking too hard a line here but if someone hires a coach they want to change something.  I may also be confusing ROLE with RELATIONSHIP.