Executive Coaching: An Individual Leadership Development Plan

Our view at Win-Win Workplace Solutions is that coaching is about both changing the attitudes and changing the behavior of an organization's key contributors, in order to help them perform even better and derive greater satisfaction from their everyday work life and their careers.

The process of refining and changing attitudes and behavior is, in essence, a psychological procedure; it thus requires a great deal of training and finesse on the part of the coach: While helping an adult modify significant facets of their behavior may not be rocket science, it's pretty darn close. Consultants who have advanced degrees in the behavioral sciences use the best methods from the last 100 years of behavioral science in order to accomplish this formidable task of enhancing performance at work.

We strongly believe that to accomplish substantive and sustained individual behavior change, certain methods must be used and specific protocols followed. We would also note that these methods and protocols are ones that have been around for quite some time. There are a dozen or a dozen and a half components that should be part of any coaching model.

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 necessary momentum necessary for any meaningful, sustainable behavior-change project.

The "Action Phase" is the third step in our Coaching methodology. In this phase, the Candidate brings 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 (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, and "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 counterproductive 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.