10 · Project — A Coaching Plan for a Direct Report

Everything in this level converges here. A coaching plan is not a development form filed with HR; it is a working document you build with one real person, that commits both of you to specific things, and that you are still using in three months. The test of whether you have completed this level is not whether you can describe GROW — it is whether one person on your team can now do something in October that they could not do in July, and whether they would describe the plan as theirs. This module gives you the deliverable spec, a fully worked example, the first coaching session that produced it, and a rubric to mark your own against.

1. The brief

Choose one direct report — not your strongest, not your weakest. The right subject is someone in the middle whose growth would materially change what your team can do, and who you have quietly been under- investing in.

Produce a written plan containing all eight sections in the template below, built across two conversations rather than in one sitting. Section by section, this level supplies the method:

Plan section	Module
Goal, in their words	01 · GROW, Goal stage
Current reality, evidenced	01 · GROW, Reality stage + 08 · signals
The one gap	08 · Recognizing & Developing Talent
The stretch assignment	05 · Delegation, levels 1-7
The conversation they're avoiding	06 · Difficult Conversations
Support and exposure	08 · the 20%
What I will change about me	03 · Psychological safety + 09 · Meetings
Checkpoints	01 · Way Forward

Two hard rules. One gap only — a plan naming four development areas develops none of them. And the person must be able to state the goal in their own words, without you prompting, at the second checkpoint; if they can't, it was your plan.

2. The plan template

COACHING PLAN
Person: ______________  Role: ______________
Period: ______ to ______   Written with them on: ______

1. GOAL  (their words, quoted, not paraphrased)
   "..."
   What good looks like in 6 months, observably:
   Whose goal this is — evidence it's theirs:

2. REALITY  (facts with dates; strengths and gaps both)
   What they do unusually well:
   What is demonstrably not working, with instances:
   What they've already tried:
   What I got wrong that contributed:

3. THE ONE GAP
   Stated as a behaviour, not a trait:
   What "closed" looks like, observably:
   Why this gap and not the others:

4. THE STRETCH ASSIGNMENT  (70%)
   Real work, already needed by the business:
   Why it cannot be completed without closing the gap:
   Delegation level (1-7):  ____
   Constraints, exhaustively:
   What could go wrong and what I will do — decided in advance:

5. THE CONVERSATION THEY'RE AVOIDING
   Who, about what:
   Their prepared opening sentence:
   My role: rehearse / observe / stay out — and which, explicitly:

6. SUPPORT AND EXPOSURE  (20% / 10%)
   Who mentors, on what specific thing:
   Rooms I will get them into:
   What I will say about them, to whom, and when:
   Formal learning, only if it serves the assignment:

7. WHAT I WILL CHANGE ABOUT MY OWN BEHAVIOUR
   Specific, observable, and they may hold me to it:

8. CHECKPOINTS
   Dates in both calendars:
   What we review:
   Signal that the plan is wrong and needs rewriting:

3. Worked example

Subject. Daniel Okoro, Senior Coordinator, promoted four months ago to lead a five-person facilities and workplace services team, from within the team. Delivery is fine. Two things are not: he is doing large amounts of the team's operational work himself at night, and one of his reports, Cal, has missed the weekly building compliance walkthrough three times without consequence. Daniel used to be Cal's peer and they are friends. His manager is Priya, head of workplace operations.

COACHING PLAN
Person: Daniel Okoro   Role: Senior Coordinator (team lead, 5 reports)
Period: 1 August to 31 January   Written with them on: 4 August

1. GOAL  (his words)
   "I want to stop being the person who catches everything, and be
    the person the team doesn't need to be caught by."
   6 months, observably: Daniel takes two consecutive weeks of leave
     with no work contact; the compliance walkthrough happens weekly
     without him doing it or chasing it.
   Whose goal: his. He raised the leave point unprompted — he
     cancelled leave twice this year and named it himself.

2. REALITY
   Does unusually well: relationships across the building; every
     contractor and every floor lead trusts him. Compliance record
     was the best in the region for two years running.
   Not working, with instances:
     - 12 Jun, 3 Jul, 24 Jul: he completed the walkthrough himself
       after Cal missed it, out of hours, and logged it under Cal's
       name. He has never told Cal he did this.
     - Team meeting 17 Jul: he answered all seven questions himself,
       including three that were directed at other people.
     - Timesheet system shows a mean of 51h/week since promotion.
   Already tried: a written rota (still bypasses it himself); asking
     Cal "is everything alright?" twice, receiving "yeah, fine."
   What I got wrong: I promoted him and gave him no delegation
     conversation at all. I have also praised him three times for
     "picking things up," which rewarded the exact behaviour I now
     want him to stop. That is my contribution and I said so to him.

3. THE ONE GAP
   Behaviour: when work is at risk, Daniel absorbs it himself rather
     than making the risk visible to the person who owns it.
   Closed looks like: a missed commitment by a team member results
     in a conversation with that person within 48 hours, and does
     not result in Daniel doing the task.
   Why this gap: every other issue — the hours, the meeting
     dominance, Cal's performance, his own leave — is downstream of
     this single behaviour. Fixing it fixes four things.

4. STRETCH ASSIGNMENT  (70%)
   Real work: own the Q4 relocation of the third floor, end to end —
     budget 140k, six weeks, four contractors, 90 staff moving.
     This is work the business needs and I would otherwise do.
   Why it forces the gap: it is physically impossible to absorb.
     He cannot personally do a floor move at night. He must
     distribute it and hold people to dates, including Cal.
   Delegation level: 5 (he decides; my view available on request;
     I back his call publicly, including to the directors).
   Constraints: 140k ceiling; Legal reviews any contract over 12
     months; the move weekend cannot be the 14th (audit); anything
     affecting building access comes to me before it's committed.
   What could go wrong: a contractor slips and the move overruns.
     Decided in advance — I do not take the project back. I take
     the escalation to the directors *with* him, and I say publicly
     that the scope was mine. I will not reverse his decisions;
     if one crosses a constraint above, I say that specifically
     rather than criticising the judgement.

5. THE CONVERSATION HE'S AVOIDING
   Who/what: Cal, three missed compliance walkthroughs, plus the
     fact that Daniel covered them silently and logged them under
     Cal's name — which Cal does not know.
   His opening sentence (his draft, third attempt):
     "I need to tell you something I should have said in June. The
      last three Thursday walkthroughs — I did them, after hours,
      and logged them as yours. That was wrong of me and it's why
      you've had no idea this was a problem. I want to fix both
      halves of that."
   My role: rehearse only. I ran the Module 6 worksheet with him,
     including box 3 — what might make Cal's behaviour reasonable.
     He discovered he had never asked. I am not in the room and I
     will not follow up with Cal myself.

6. SUPPORT AND EXPOSURE
   Mentor: Ines (regional facilities lead) on one specific thing —
     how she runs contractor negotiations she doesn't have authority
     over. Two sessions, booked, not open-ended.
   Rooms: he presents the relocation plan at the November directors'
     meeting. Not the first month — the last.
   What I will say, to whom, when: at the September ops leads
     meeting I will state that the relocation is Daniel's decision
     and that I am not the approver. Directors, same message,
     October.
   Formal: half-day on scheduling/critical path, in September only
     because the relocation needs it. Nothing else.

7. WHAT I WILL CHANGE
   - I stop praising out-of-hours rescue work. If I hear about it,
     I ask what it prevented someone else from learning.
   - In our 1:1s I will not answer any operational question for the
     first twenty minutes. I will ask what he's tried.
   - I will not accept a piece of work back from him during the
     relocation, even if he offers it and even if it's faster.
   He has permission to name it out loud when I break these.

8. CHECKPOINTS
   Dates: 1 Sep, 1 Oct, 5 Nov (post-relocation), 15 Jan. In both
     calendars now.
   Review: the two observable measures in section 1, plus one
     instance since last time where he made a risk visible instead
     of absorbing it.
   Plan is wrong if: by 1 Oct the relocation has become another
     thing he is doing alone at night. That means the assignment
     was too absorbable and we change it, not him.

4. The session that produced it

An excerpt from the first conversation, run on the GROW worksheet from Module 1. Priya's goal is that the plan is Daniel's, not hers.

Priya (Goal): Forget the team for a second. What do you want to be different by January?

Daniel: Fewer late nights, I suppose.

Priya: Is that the goal, or a symptom of it?

Daniel: ...Symptom. I want to stop being the person who catches everything. Be the person the team doesn't need to be caught by.

Priya (Reality): Give me the last time you caught something.

Daniel: Thursday. Cal missed the compliance walkthrough, so I did it at half seven.

Priya: And logged it how?

Daniel: ...Under his name.

Priya: How many times?

Daniel: Three.

Priya: What does Cal know about any of this?

Daniel: Nothing. That's the bit I've been trying not to look at.

Priya: What have you tried?

Daniel: A rota, which I then went round myself. And asking him twice if he was okay, and getting "fine" both times.

Priya: What do you think is going on with him? Give me the version where Cal is being completely reasonable.

Daniel: ...I don't have one. I've never actually asked him what's happening on Thursdays. His shift changed in May, now I say it out loud.

Priya (Options): So what could you do?

Daniel: Tell him.

Priya: What else?

Daniel: Move the walkthrough to a day that works, if the shift is the issue. Give it to someone else entirely.

Priya: What else? Even a bad one.

Daniel: Keep covering it and say nothing, which is what I've been doing. Or escalate it to you and let you deal with it.

Priya: Which of those actually gets you to January?

Daniel: Telling him. Including the part where I logged it under his name, which is going to be horrible.

Priya (Way forward): By when?

Daniel: This week. Thursday, before the next one.

Priya: Scale of one to ten, how likely is Thursday?

Daniel: Five. He's a friend and I've let this run for two months.

Priya: What would make it a nine?

Daniel: Writing the first sentence down and not improvising it. And booking it in the calendar now so I can't drift.

Priya: Do both. What do you want from me?

Daniel: Don't talk to Cal. If you fix it, I'm back where I started.

Priya: Agreed, and I'll say the same if he comes to me.

Priya contributed no content: not the shift change, not the rota, not the opening sentence. She contributed the sequence, one question about Cal's reasonableness, and the 1-10 check that converted a vague intention into a dated one.

5. Rubric — mark your own plan

Criterion	Weak	Strong
Goal ownership	You wrote it; they'd paraphrase it differently	Quoted in their words; they raised it first
Reality	General impressions	Instances with dates, including your own contribution
Gap count	Three or four "areas"	Exactly one, stated behaviourally
Assignment	An exercise created for development	Work the business already needs, at a named delegation level
Failure position	Unstated	Decided in advance and told to them
Your own change	Absent	Specific, observable, and they may call you on it
Checkpoints	"We'll catch up"	Dates in both calendars, plus a stated condition for rewriting the plan

A plan that scores "weak" on your own change is not a coaching plan. It is a performance-improvement document with friendlier typography, and the person will read it that way within a week.

How It Actually Works

Building a written coaching plan for a real person, rather than practicing GROW conversations in the abstract, matters because skill transfer is notoriously context-dependent: a technique rehearsed on a hypothetical scenario builds a mental model tied to that scenario's specific cues, which often fails to trigger when the real cues (this actual person's specific hesitations, this actual power dynamic) don't match the practiced ones — a well-documented gap in training-transfer research sometimes called the "far transfer" problem. Applying the plan template to an actual direct report forces the same retrieval-under-real-constraints that will be needed on the job, which is the only condition under which the skill reliably transfers.

Why the rubric matters more than it seems to for a self-graded exercise. Self-assessment of one's own coaching questions is vulnerable to the same motivated-reasoning bias discussed in Level 1's project module — a leader rereading their own plan will tend to read intent into it that an outside observer, following the rubric's specific external criteria (are the questions genuinely open, does the plan specify a real GROW sequence, is there a concrete Will/commitment step), would not automatically credit. The rubric functions as an external check precisely because it doesn't rely on the plan's author correctly judging their own work.

Exercise

Build the plan. Choose the person today, and run the two conversations inside two weeks — the first on the GROW worksheet from Module 1 to produce sections 1-3, the second to agree sections 4-8. Write it in the template in section 2, and give them the document; a coaching plan they have not read is a set of notes about someone.

Then apply the rubric in section 5 to your own plan honestly, and fix the two lowest-scoring rows before the first checkpoint. Pay particular attention to section 7: if you cannot name a specific behaviour of your own that has to change, you have almost certainly diagnosed a person where the real problem is a system you built.

Stretch goals

• Do the second one. Build a plan for the person you would have chosen last — the one whose potential you are least sure about. The "investigate" box in Module 8 is where the gap between your judgement and reality is widest.
• Have them build yours. Ask your report to write the section 7 they would put in a coaching plan for you, and take it seriously. This is the sharpest available test of the psychological safety in Module 3.
• Run the checkpoint as a coaching session, not a status update. At the 1 October equivalent, resist reviewing progress. Open with the Goal question again and see whether the goal has changed — if it has and it's still theirs, that's the plan working, not failing.
• Coach a peer. Run a full GROW conversation with someone you have no authority over. Without positional power, leading questions stop working entirely, which is the fastest way to find out how much of your coaching was actually disguised advice.
• Track the second-order effect. Six months on, ask whether the person you coached has started coaching someone else. That, rather than their own progress, is the measure of servant leadership at this level — and it is the entry condition for Level 3.