Originally Posted on The Coaching Tools Company as Beyond Sessions 4: Why Rushing Discovery Slows Down Transformation
| This article was originally published by The Guiding Matrix and is republished on The Coaching Tools Company website with their kind permission. The article was written by Dr Steve Jeffs, and all rights remain with the original author. |
When I mentor coaches working with capable, ambitious clients, I see a quiet pressure appear early in engagements.
A pressure to demonstrate value. To justify the commitment. To get to “the real work.”
It shows up as a question: How quickly can I help this client make progress?
And beneath that question is often an assumption: that discovery is something to move through efficiently so the transformation can begin.
But what if discovery is the transformation beginning?
What I’ve Noticed About First Sessions
What I’ve noticed across mentoring conversations is that first sessions feel different from what comes later.
There’s a sense of orientation happening. The client is locating themselves in the work. You’re both finding the language that will matter. And yet, there’s often an internal pressure to compress this phase — to gather what’s needed and move on, to get clarity quickly so you can “start coaching.”
This pressure isn’t a flaw. It’s developmental. It comes from caring about the client’s time, from wanting to prove the engagement’s value, from the belief that transformation happens when you’re doing something.
But when discovery is rushed — when it’s treated as an intake session rather than a foundation — the entire journey becomes harder to hold.
What Rushing Discovery Actually Costs
When discovery is compressed into one or two sessions, a few patterns emerge.
The client may intellectually understand what you’re working on together, but they haven’t yet inhabited it. The work feels abstract rather than grounded. You find yourself returning to foundational questions weeks into the engagement — questions that feel like they should have been settled earlier.
Sessions become reactive. The client brings whatever is most urgent that week, and the coaching drifts toward problem-solving rather than transformation.
When discovery is rushed, you start carrying what the phase should have held. The structure stops doing its work, and improvisation under load returns.
And perhaps most importantly: the client never fully resources themselves for the work ahead. They remain in the same emotional, cognitive, and relational state they arrived in — trying to transform from a place that hasn’t yet stabilised.
None of this means the coaching is ineffective. But it does mean the structure isn’t holding the work — you are.
Discovery as Resourcing, Not Information-Gathering
Here’s the reframing: Discovery isn’t a single intake session where you extract information quickly so you can move on to “real coaching.” It’s not a hurdle to clear.
The coaching discovery phase has its own rhythm, its own intent. It’s the foundation that makes everything that follows possible. This is structure working as it should.
That work includes helping the client orient to the process of coaching itself, not just the content. It includes building the relational and emotional ground that deeper work will require. It means allowing patterns, values, and priorities to surface naturally rather than being compressed or over-hurried.
It creates space for the client to become curious about their own experience. It establishes rhythm and trust before introducing challenge or intensity.
This takes time. Not because you’re slow or tentative, but because maturity, clarity, and groundedness cannot be rushed.
When discovery is given room to unfold, the client becomes an active participant in the journey — not someone being guided through it. And that shift changes everything that follows.
What Changes When Discovery Is Allowed to Be a Phase
When discovery is treated as a deliberate, multi-session phase rather than a hurdle to clear, several things stabilise.
The client feels less pressure to “have it figured out” immediately. They relax into the process. You stop feeling the need to extract insights or manufacture breakthroughs early. Presence becomes easier.
The transition into delivery feels natural rather than abrupt. The client already understands where they are in the journey and what comes next.
And perhaps most significantly: the work that happens later in the engagement is held by the foundation built during discovery. You’re not improvising. The journey is doing the work.
Who This Is For
This way of thinking about discovery is particularly relevant if you’re actively coaching clients through full engagements, not one-off sessions, and you’ve noticed that early clarity doesn’t always translate into sustained momentum. If you’re still learning how to coach, or if you primarily work session-by-session without a defined journey, this may feel premature.
The Quieter Question
If discovery deserves intentional time and space, what does that mean for the rest of the journey? If the beginning matters this much, how much does the ending matter?
That’s the question most coaches don’t ask — until they feel the cost of not asking it.
Beyond Sessions exists to support coaches in designing and holding professional coaching journeys where each phase — including discovery — can do the work it’s meant to do.
This is part 4 of a 6 blog series helping coaches to elevate their professional impact.
Written by Dr Steve Jeffs & Erwin de Grave
