I want to comment on a great talk I heard a couple of days ago. Jonathan Passmore used a story about consumer research into spaghetti sauce (!) to demonstrate that when people are asked what they want, they not only don't know, but they don't know they don't know - ie they will confidently tell you they want things that their subsequent buying behaviour shows they actually don't.
It's exactly the same at the start of a coaching contract. Clients will confidently tell me what they think they want to work on. But actually we end up working on something else. I've always trusted that this has been ok, because I've felt that what we've actually done is more important. But I've always felt a little guilty about how fast we move on from those initial ideas. Now I'll be a lot less concerned about it!
