Phases of coaching:
Pre-coaching or the preparation Phase: (ideally this should get complete before the first meeting):
- Sponsorship: This is the step in which sponsor of the coaching engagement is identified and an agreement is arrived with the sponsor about the commercial aspect of the engagement. During this stage it is also imperative to record the outcome expectations of the sponsor(s). In general the sponsor will be the CEO or CPO of the organization, engaging the coach.
- Back ground information collection: As executive coaching is a relatively expensive intervention it is generally used for fairly senior executives and all of them will have quite a few stake holders. Input like 360 degree where the coachee selects the participants in collaboration with her direct line manager, output of psychometric tool like MBTI, goal sheet, performance comments and profile detailing career milestone and personal milestones need be collected beforehand.
- One of the major and important sources of inputs will be the line manger of the coachee. A direct interaction with line manager to find out the specific improvement expectations of the coachee is extremely valuable. This interaction is also used to collect general impression and input about the coachee in the work situations.
- Analysis of the collected documents to get familiarized and get the understanding of the personality of the coachee.
- Suitably restructure the ‘Integrated Coaching Tracker’ (ICT) to suit specific coaching engagement to be used by the coachee to set goals, plan, execute, record the progress and track the whole process.
Contracting Phase:
This is arguably one of the most important phases, per se, where the relationship between the coach and coachee is built formally for the whole of the coaching engagement. This is when the early discovery also takes place. This need to happens during the first coaching session.
- Relationship and contract is extremely important and creates the foundation of the whole engagement. This session starts with initial brief introduction from both the coach and the coachee. In this session coach clearly articulates that the exchanges will be kept totally confidential from his / her side and urge the coachee to be as open as possible and also make it clear that the coaching sessions belongs to her and how she leverage them depends on her and the coach is there only to assist.
- Introduce the coachee with the ICT power tool and its usage. Take the view point of her about how comfortable she is on the usage of the same. It is not necessary to use all the tabs of the tool in all engagement and suitable alteration ideas and modalities of use are discussed and agreed on.
- Work with the coachee to narrow down areas to work on during the coaching engagement life cycle.
- The whole classification of input and short listing may spill over to the next session especially if there are tools like MBTI is involved. In such a case the interpretation of such inputs and clarifying them to coachee may require more time.
Acceptance Phase:
During this phase the coachee critically examines the inputs from all sources and decides on her own to include the ones which are important to pursue. She is free to reject all inputs in an extreme situation and decide on her own new areas to focus as she and she alone is the ultimate owner of making the changes in her behaviour or way of doing things or getting a new skill.