FILLING IN

In addition to completing formal assessment exercises and activities, it's best to provide your coach with other relevant information about yourself and your world. You operate in a unique context of work and personal relationships, and your coach needs to understand you in the context of your situation.

You can bring your coach into the picture by describing:

• the industry you work in and the issues and challenges it faces;

• the organization you work for and its culture;

• your home life and how it intersects with your work (for instance, whether you talk with your spouse about your work, whether you have an office at home, and whether you try to keep work and family life strictly separate);

• your health habits and personal preferences.

Because executive coaching is meant to produce visible, measurable changes over a period of months, not all assessments take place at the outset of a coaching engagement. Your coach should assess your progress at intervals during the course of your working together. Decide with your coach how results will be measured. You may have your coach interview your boss, for example, to see what behavior changes your boss has observed. Your coach may ask the people who previously provided written or oral assessments to complete follow-up assessments. Or you may choose to supply some kind of self-assessment using a formal assessment instrument or a set of questions determined early on in the coaching process.