What Coaches and Mentors Can Learn from Expecting Better
Expecting Better argues that a rule handed down without its reasoning is hard to use well. Told only what to do, people either comply anxiously or dismiss the instruction, and neither response is real understanding. Broad guidance is usually built for the most cautious version of a large, varied population, not your specific case, so it tends to be more conservative than the evidence for your situation actually requires. Real understanding, in turn, grows from asking good questions over time, in small doses, rather than from one panicked research binge. None of this licenses acting alone, though. The point is always a sharper, more specific conversation with whoever holds real responsibility in a given situation, not a reason to override them. For coaches and mentors, the inherited rules arrive as standard training methods, playbooks, and mentoring formulas passed down through certification programs and tradition, often without their original reasoning attached. This edition adapts the same four ideas to the guidance you inherit and the guidance you pass on to others.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
Questioning the standard method
Every coaching discipline accumulates techniques nobody remembers commissioning: a fixed drill sequence, a standard feedback script, a mentoring structure copied from a program the coach once took. Repeated long enough, a method feels like proven fact, even when nobody using it can say what problem it solved.
A coach applies a standard drill sequence to every client for months, not realizing it was designed for beginners, while several of her clients are well past that stage.
Before applying a standard method, ask what level or type of person it was originally built for, and compare that to your actual client.
Recognizing methods built for the average client
Most standard coaching methods are calibrated for an average client across a wide range of people, not for the specific person in front of you. That makes them often more cautious, or more generic, than what your particular client's situation actually calls for.
A mentor gives the same generic career advice to every mentee, missing that one of them needed a much more unconventional approach to actually progress.
When using a standard method, ask what kind of client it assumes, and adjust your approach when your actual client differs.
Treating understanding as an ongoing habit
Trying to master an entire coaching philosophy in one certification weekend rarely produces real skill. Real understanding builds slowly, through small observations and adjustments made across many sessions over time.
A coach adopts a new technique right after a single workshop, applies it rigidly for a season, then abandons it when it fails to fit most of her clients.
Pick one open question about how a method is landing with a specific client, and test a small adjustment in your next session.
Using it to sharpen the conversation, not skip it
None of this is a reason for clients to disregard your judgment as their coach, or for you to disregard supervision from a more experienced mentor or certifying body. Understanding the reasoning behind a method is meant to sharpen the questions you ask, not hand anyone grounds for overriding expert judgment on their own.
Sometimes questioning a standard method and needing to deliver results on a tight timeline pull against each other, especially early in a client relationship before trust is built. Favor the shorter version of the habit: use the standard method for now, but note the adjustment to test once you know the client better. A noted question protects your curiosity without risking early progress.
Name one thing, honestly
- Which coaching method have you used lately without asking what kind of person it was originally built for? - Where has a standard technique been more generic than what a specific client actually needed? - What is one question about your methods you have been meaning to test with an actual client?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
Pick one open question about how a method is landing with a specific client, and test a small adjustment in your next session.