Executive’s Guidelines

Managing Confidentiality

• Partner with the coach and other members of your organization to write a confidentiality agreement that specifies what information will and will not be shared, in which circumstances, with whom, and how, including guidelines on electronic forms of communication.
• Whenever there is a question regarding how information is or should be handled, communicate directly with other members of the coaching partnership to come to an agreement.
• Respond to feedback from others in non-defensive ways, without second-guessing who might have said what or retaliating for feedback that is difficult to hear.

Pre-coaching Activities

• Consult with your stakeholders to determine if executive coaching is right for you, establish the appropriate goals, and select the best coach.
• Work in partnership with others to make sure all business and financial contracts are expedited.
• Inform your coach about you, your organization, and your situation, and begin the process with a willingness to learn

Contracting

• Actively participate in establishing a learning contract and a personal contract for your coaching.
• As appropriate in your organization, participate in establishing, monitoring, and administering business/legal/financial contract(s) with your coach.
• Adhere to the learning and personal contracts. Use them to guide what you do in activities related to your coaching, including how you gauge your progress and success.

Assessment

• Invest the needed time to expedite your assessment.
• Maintain an open attitude toward feedback and other assessment results.
• Work collaboratively with your coach to identify and ask questions about situations that might provide insight into you and your organization.
• Make the best use of feedback and other assessment information to change you and your organization as needed.

Goal Setting

• Collaborate with stakeholders to understand how others perceive your needs for change and development.
• Be honest about your own priorities for coaching.
• Clarify what you need to do to achieve your goals.
• Invest the time in coaching and on the job to achieve your goals.

Coaching

• Be open and willing to try new things and take appropriate risks.
• Focus on what you need to do to learn and take action within the context of your work role.
• Exchange feedback with your coach and others in your organization about your performance and how the coaching has helped you achieve the desired results.
  Transitioning to Long-Term Development
• Work with your coach and others in your organization to identify improvements and opportunities for further progress.
• Participate in formulating a long-term plan for your continued development.
• Establish an agreement with an appropriate person in your organization to support and monitor your future development.
• Follow through with your plan and invest the time needed to achieve your long-term development goals.
• Communicate with your coach and the appropriate people in your organization about the effectiveness of the coach and the coaching process.
  

Coach’s Guidelines

Managing Confidentiality

• Work within the proprietary and confidentiality guidelines of the organization’s contracts and documents.
• In general, within the boundaries of the law, keep all organizational information confidential unless it is otherwise available to the public.
• Do not share with anyone except the executive herself any details regarding that executive unless members of the coaching partnership have agreed otherwise.
• When getting feedback from others about the executive, be clear up front about the terms of confidentiality and work strictly within these terms.

Pre-coaching Activities

• Participate in the organization’s selection and orientation process for coaches.
• Provide the needed information about you and your practice.
• Partner with the executive and other members of the organization to facilitate decision making and communication regarding the coaching.

Contracting

• Share your own standards and guidelines for contracting with the executive and organization while respecting and agreeing to use the organization’s standards as feasible.
• Actively use the learning and personal contracts to plan and deliver coaching and to assess progress and results.
• Negotiate the terms of the contracts in good faith and comply with them in full, or reestablish them as mutually agreeable and in a timely fashion.

Assessment

• Be knowledgeable in a broad range of assessment methodologies. Administer only those for which you have been fully trained or otherwise adequately prepared, offering a clear context for their strengths and limitations.
• Deliver feedback in a safe, supportive environment and in ways that encourage the executive to constructively act upon the assessment.
• Help the executive use the assessment data to create a development action plan.

Goal Setting

• Facilitate collaboration between the executive and her stakeholders to identify and agree upon specific and measurable coaching goals.
• Document the coaching goals and communicate them in writing to all members of the coaching partnership.
• As the coaching progresses, adjust goals based on interim results and changing circumstances and priorities.

Coaching

• Adhere to the standards and guidelines for practice outlined in this Handbook.
• Maintain the coaching focus on the goals that have been agreed upon by the partnership.
• Participate actively in all meetings with the executive and her stakeholders, preparing relevant action items, role-modeling, applying adult learning principles, and creating an environment that supports exploration and change.
• Offer truthful and relevant feedback during coaching in helpful and supportive ways.

Transitioning to Long-Term Development

• Facilitate, guide, and make recommendations for a long-term development plan for the executive based on the coaching experience and your expertise.
• Communicate with the executive’s manager and/or stakeholders to ensure commitment to the executive’s future development.
• After the coaching ends, make yourself available for questions and clarification. Check in with the executive occasionally, as appropriate, to maintain the relationship and her learning momentum.
  

Other Partners’ Guidelines

Managing Confidentiality

• Actively participate in agreeing on what information will or will not be shared, with whom, by whom, when, in what form, and under what circumstances.
• Keep any information learned about the executive as a result of the coaching confidential, unless otherwise agreed before the coaching begins.
• Ensure that no confidential information coming out of the coaching process is shared electronically unless you can control access to that information.
• Identify an internal resource who can advise you and the coach on questions of confidentiality and other sensitive topics and can help resolve theses issues.

Pre-coaching Activities

• Establish and follow standard practices for selecting, matching, and orienting coaches for specific projects.
• Work in partnership with the executive and coach to determine coaching needs, requirements, and desired outcomes.
• Clear any barriers for coaching contracts and activities to be completed.

Contracting

• Ensure that standards for learning contracts are established and disseminated in your organization; become familiar with those standards.
• Actively participate in establishing and supporting the executive’s learning contract.
• As appropriate, actively participate in establishing and supporting business/legal/financial contract(s) for the coaching.
• As appropriate, facilitate the formal contracting and payment process in your organization.
  Assessment
• Respect the agreed-upon level of confidentiality for information that comes out of the executive coaching process.
• Provide honest, accurate, and complete information about the executive and the organization.
• Participate in identifying and facilitating ways for the coach to directly observe the executive and the organization.

Goal Setting

• Be honest and direct about your goals for the coaching.
• Collaborate with the executive and other members of the partnership to agree on appropriate coaching goals.
• Provide ongoing feedback to both executive and coach on the executive’s progress toward his goals.
• Support the executive’s efforts to achieve his goals, allowing him to take the agreed-upon time to achieve them before changing his responsibilities or the resources he needs.

Coaching

• Maintain a supportive and patient attitude toward the change process.
• Provide feedback to both the executive and the coach on progress and concerns.
• Offer to mentor, coach, role model, and support the executive from your own perspective within the organization.
• Make suggestions and help the executive get the support he needs from others in the organization.

Transitioning to Long-Term Development

• Actively participate in creating a long-term development plan for the executive.
• Facilitate internal and external means of development.
• Share ongoing constructive feedback with the executive about his progress toward development objectives.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of the coach and the coaching process; provide the coach and others in the organization with feedback to maximize the effectiveness of future coaching.