Executive Coaching - A Guide For The HR Professional.pdf

Executive Breakaway Section 185
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participants in the story are supporting characters—it is really all
about you and what you want to do.
This active role begins at the very beginning, when the first discussion
is held about coaching. You should make an active decision
to be a coaching client. Perhaps you initiated the idea. If someone
approached you about it, your participation should be voluntary.
Ideally, you should enter this relationship with positive energy and
curiosity. Unbridled enthusiasm is too much to expect from a firsttime
participant, but you certainly shouldn’t be coerced into this
activity.
You should be comfortable about doing the coaching at this
time. By “this time” we mean that the flow of your work suggests
that coaching might be helpful now and that you’re comfortable
with your boss and HR professional as participants. This is also a
decision on your part.
Similarly, you may have been actively involved with the choice
of who your coach will be and what the two of you will focus on.
So now it’s time to actually start the coaching relationship.
What should you be doing to make it worthwhile? What are you
likely to be experiencing during the coaching?
Steps in the Coaching Process
Coaching relationships are custom-designed, not replicated from a
manual the coach keeps on a shelf or that the HR department asks
external coaches to obey. However, a large percentage of coaching
assignments do follow a general format, which is what we will
describe here. If you feel your situation falls outside of the usual pattern
for coaching assignments, you will need to contract for a variation
on the traditional relationship so you will have a process that
makes sense for you and your company.
Executive Coaching. Copyright © 2005 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Reproduced by
permission of Pfeiffer, an Imprint of Wiley. www.pfeiffer.com