The First Ninety Seconds

Not rapport — rapport is easy and largely irrelevant. What gets settled in the first ninety seconds is the question of who is in charge of the hour, and the answer sticks for the whole engagement.

Most coaches concede it immediately, out of politeness. The client arrives with an agenda, apologises for being late, says they have a hard stop, and asks what the format is. Answering all four questions in order hands over the frame.

The alternative is not to be domineering. It is to have one sentence prepared that establishes what this hour is, and to say it before anything else does. Mine is dull and it works: "We have fifty minutes; I would like to spend the first ten on what has actually happened since we last spoke, not on what you planned to happen."

What that sentence does is announce that the hour has a shape and that the shape is mine to hold. Clients are, in my experience, relieved. They have plenty of meetings they are responsible for running.

The exception is a client who genuinely needs to run it — someone in crisis, or someone whose whole difficulty is that nobody lets them lead. You will know within the ninety seconds. That is the other reason to pay attention to them.