The Lamp Post Distinction – Assessing Your Coaching Value

Years ago I received some interesting material on the art of client enrollment in coaching from the business coach Steve Chandler. In it he shared something called the “Lamp Post Distinction.” It struck a chord with me—perhaps because it was so spot on true.

The Lamp Post Distinction is meant to help coaches who are experiencing a slippage in confidence and doubting their abilities by reframing their perspective on the value of coaching. (In client enrollment conversations, in addition to basic sales skills, confidence and belief in yourself are big factors in attracting clients.) The Lamp Post Distinction is a way to remind yourself to keep your confidence up whenever there is any slippage in belief around how good coaching is for people, because there is always value and goodness when you are inside a coaching conversation.

Here is the Lamp Post Distinction, as described by Steve Chandler:

“Let’s say a person leaves his place of business every evening and walks over to a lamp post and speaks to the lamp post. Maybe he vents and talks about the problems of the day and talks about the opportunities for tomorrow and some places where he can make improvements. But it’s just a lamp post sitting there. Yet even that would make that life better. Even that would have that be a better person. So even talking to a lamp post every evening would be something that would be beneficial to a person. And you as a coach can be better than a lamp post. You talk back, you can really listen, you can see things.”

How true that is! If the simple act of sharing your life with a lamp post each day can make a positive difference, then sitting with a coach who engages, queries, holds you accountable, and supports you with every breath is always going to be good, if not life changing. All coaches know how powerful coaching is, or we wouldn’t be doing it.

Yet there is a lot of pressure on coaches to prove themselves constantly inside their work, to demonstrate quantitative results. What the ROI on this? How do you know that the coaching engagement was a success? In certain contexts, particularly within organizations, there will always be a need to measure and evaluate the impact of coaching, for empirical evidence that goals and objectives have been met, for proof that the investment was worth it.

Try doing an internet search on the topic of ‘measuring coaching results.’ There is a boatload of information available, with many ideas, some contradictory, for how it can be done effectively. To be honest, it’s enough to give me a headache. And so in my coaching practice, I make no attempt to “measure” or “quantify” the effectiveness or ROI of my work beyond only the most basic indicators:

• Does my client believe he or she has changed, grown, or developed in meaningful ways?
• Can my client give examples of that change in his or her life?
• Is my client feeling confident to move on in the world without me?
• If the need was there, would my client return for more coaching with me?
• Would my client recommend me to another person?

Many people question whether the client being pleased with the outcome is enough. I would say it’s pretty close to enough. That is the beauty of the Lamp Post Distinction—it does not matter what the lamp post thinks. It does not matter what the people walking past as you converse with the lamp post think. What matters is, do you believe and feel having that conversation with the lamp post is helping you? And if you do, great!

One day you may even start to tell other people about your wonderful discovery, of how the lamp post on your walk home changed your life. Sure, they may try it and say, ‘But that didn’t work at all. I have no idea why that helped you.’ What does that actually prove? That there is little or no value in sharing your life with a lamp post each day? Of course it doesn’t prove that. Coaching is a subjective game, that’s the whole point.

There will always be those who feel a pressing need to measure and quantify coaching results. Thankfully, I’m not one of them! It frees up so much energy not having to work so hard to determine whether my work is making a positive difference in my client’s lives. If talking to a lamp post each day can make a person’s life better, then I, with all my capacities as a coach, can do that and so much more. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.