Coaching as re-storying

The coaching assignments I find least satisfactory are the ones where neither the client or client organisations actually has much interest in change. The client is sent along to be either 'fixed' or 'stroked' by the coach but nobody is up for any real conversation or real challenge to the status quo. The same story stays pretty much stuck even if the client does feel better for having shared it. 

Coaching is at is best when the client not only has space to tell their story (aka 'dumping'), but reflect on and challenge the assumptions and beliefs it contains. I don't believe my job as a coach is to judge or rewrite their story so much as facilitate a process of re-storying. After all, if we can learn to tell a different story about our lives/ work/ relationships/ past what new possibilities does that open up for our present and our future?