The Executive Coaching and Leadership Development Process

As you’ve read in some of our White Papers, our Coaching methodology is a four-phase process that launches from a “data platform.” The initial Assessment Phase involves gathering a good deal of information about the candidate—gleaned from an in-depth life-career interview, self-report assessment instruments, multi-rater feedback, and relevant performance evaluation data.

The Candidate is then methodically debriefed on all these findings. The debriefing process gives the Candidate a view of themselves that they’ve almost certainly never experienced which, in turn, creates the needed motivation for behavior change, highlights critical strengths, identifies development needs, and serves as the medium through which any obstacles to behavior change can be minimized. All of this, then, crescendos into the goals of the second phase of our Coaching process—Action Planning.
Our Blueprint for Action is the template for this goal setting and action planning process. The Blueprint for Action is one part roadmap, one part motivator and one part progress evaluation system, which create the momentum necessary for any meaningful, sustainable behavior change project.

While the Blueprint for Action (BFA) maps the high-impact change processes identified from the data, the Leadership Portrait (LP) serves to crystallize and codify the strengths of the candidate. The LP helps the candidate to understand the basic fundamentals of their leadership style and approach that has led them to their current level of success. The BFA and the LP work hand in hand by showing the candidate what they need to change to be more effective (BFA) and what they need to never change to remain effective (LP). The LP also serves as a reference tool for future situations when the leader is pushed or challenged in new and different ways. The LP helps to remind the leader of their strengths and keeps them grounded in their fundamentals as a leader.

The Action Phase is the third step in our Coaching methodology. In this phase, the Candidate brings his or her Blueprint(s) for Action alive, implementing its action steps. At the same time, the Candidate will have by this point enlisted an internal Change Partner (it’s usually the Candidate’s boss).

The Change Partner is briefed on the Blueprint(s) and will assume a role (to whatever degree appropriate) as mentor, cheerleader, “keeper of the contract,” as well as being the person that integrates the commitments made within the Blueprint into the Candidate’s more formal performance management process. A number of what we call behavior experiments ensue. These are assignments that cause the Candidate to stretch, replace old counter-productive behaviors with more effective strategies, and create and ultimately sustain the kind of momentum required to ensure lasting change in the Candidate’s day-to-day performance.

The final step is the Reassessment and Refinement Phase. At this point (typically five to eight months into the project), the Coach begins to take a step back in the process and is used on more of an as-needed basis. The Candidate and Change Partner at this point are tasked with more of the responsibility to assess on-going progress and the need to tweak the Blueprint, which is meant to be a dynamic document that is regularly refined as circumstances warrant.