Executive Coaching
Compressing a six-month coaching engagement into three months of real work.
A newly promoted General Manager was working with a strong executive coach. Chemistry was good. Sessions were productive. But months in, the client and the coach were still building the map — not walking it.
The situation
A promising leader, a capable coach, and a coaching engagement that felt like it was still warming up when it should have been in motion.
The question we set out to answer
“Where is this leader's leverage actually sitting — and can the coach see it in week two instead of month four?”
How the work was done
- 01
Ran the Penta Personality and Leadership Assessment before session three.
- 02
Facilitated a three-way debrief: the leader, the coach, and a Luks Prisma practitioner.
- 03
Reframed the coaching contract around two specific leadership behaviors rather than a general goal.
- 04
Set a checkpoint at 90 days against those same two behaviors.
What changed
The engagement finished ahead of schedule with two behavioral changes the leader's manager could name unprompted.
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Coach reported the fastest diagnostic phase they had run in years.
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Leader kept the assessment framework in use post-engagement.
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The company adopted the pre-coaching assessment as a standing practice.
The principle behind the case
“The purpose of an assessment in a coaching engagement is not to tell the coach what to do. It is to give the leader something concrete to work on — sooner.”