NOTE: As of 2022 the Center for Executive Coaching is now accredited with the ICF as a Level 2 Coach Training Organization. The ICF has changed their language and replaced ACTP with Level 2. We were among the first group of coach training programs to receive this accreditation, after a rigorous review by the ICF.

Coaching Case Study: Would you accept this assignment II?

Here is another assignment that has been offered to a member of the CEC. Would you take it, and if so, under what conditions?

Case: You are invited to lead a series of leadership and team building workshops for a middle management team, as part of a one-day roll out of the strategic planning process. This is your first assignment with this organization. You were not involved in the development of the strategic plan. Your role would be to facilitate some exercises to get the middle management team excited about the strategic plan, and discuss the implementation plan going forward. You would be involved for about a day.

Discussion: There are a few risks with this type of assignment. First, you are coming in at the end of a process, and you have no idea whether the process was done effectively or not. If people are not excited about the strategic plan, do you want to be associated with that situation? Second, you are being positioned as a one-time day-rate facilitator for middle managers — not a senior-level coach and advisor. This makes the opportunities for future work with this organization more limited. Third, there is no clear metric for what success looks like, other than positive reviews on those one -page "smile sheets." It is hard to measure success when you are called in to be part of a "rah rah" session.

In talking about these issues with the coach, we decided that the only way to take on this assignment was if she could also serve as the accountability coach who works with the senior team and middle managers to make sure that the strategy got implemented. Even then, some assessment work would be required to confirm that the organization has truly bought into the strategy and is committing the resources behind it.

In my own experience, I've learned that you want to position yourself as high as possible in an organization from the start, and work on the most pressing challenges faces by the leaders. In this case, the coach is getting involved "late and low."

Aftermath: The coach had a discussion with the leader involved in rolling out the program and talked more about the overall value she could provide to the organization. The leader was not aware of the coach's capabilities and realized that she could be much more valuable on other assignments, and that bringing her in for this one was like buying a Mercedes for a job that needed a Buick. The coach is now being considered for higher-level, more strategic work.

Aflac

Amazon

Ancestry

Army Corp of Engineers

Ascension Health

AT&T

Bank of America

Bechtel

Best Buy

Booz Allen

Bose

Bristol-Myers Squibb

Brown University

Capital One

Caterpillar

Charles Schwab & Co.

Children’s Hospital Colorado

Cisco

Citrix

Coca-Cola

Deloitte

Dropbox

Duke Energy

Galveston Independent School District

General Atomics

General Electric

Google

Harvard Business School

Home Depot

Inland Steel

International Red Cross

Johnson and Johnson

Kaiser-Permanente

KPMG

Laser Spine Institute

Lexis Nexis

Liberty Mututal

L’Oreal

Macy’s

Mckinsey Consulting

Merck

Microsoft

MIT

NASA

National Basketball Association (NBA)

Nike

Nissan

Nvidia

Partners Healthcare

Philips

Procter & Gamble

Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC)

Ralph Lauren

Regeneron

Rice University

Ross Stores

Russell Reynolds Associates

Schneider Electric

Shell Oil

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Stryker

The Ohio State University

Tom’s Shoes

United Nations

University of Florida

Unum

UPS

US Air Force

US Army

US Army Medical Corps

US Marines

US Navy

USAID

Valassis

VMWare

Xerox

Zappos

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