assessment, challenge, support:
the value of coaching
by judy futch

Coaching provides a unique opportunity to work on specific goals and issues that affect your performance and that you are interested in changing. Coaches can provide three key resources: assessment, challenge and support.

ASSESSMENT lets you know where you are now relative to where you’d like to be. It provides clarity about needed changes and clues about how the gap can be closed. Assessment can be provided by on-going feedback using a 360° feedback instrument—getting feedback from your supervisor, employees/peers, and comparing it to your personal assessment (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®, for example) and self-reflection. What am I doing well? Where do I need to improve? How am I doing in relationship to my goals? What’s important to me? It helps to shift your thinking about your current self-understanding to a broader and future oriented vantage point.

CHALLENGE creates an opportunity to s-t-r-e-t-c-h beyond your self-perceived restraints or your current skill level. Challenges can be on the level of specific action steps and goals or the exploration of values and beliefs. Since challenges stimulate stretch associated with professional development and also create a measure of disequilibrium, they are most powerful when partnered with support.

SUPPORT is key in maintaining motivation to learn and grow. Support helps produce a sense of accomplishment about learning. Support comes in many forms—a personal coach, encouraging comments, empathy, active listening, learning resources (books, web sites), self-reflection opportunities (journaling, meditation), feedback, or group sharing.

What happens when you have a healthy challenge coupled with support but no assessment? Your likelihood of success is slim. It would be like running a marathon with your own cheering section and no honest review of your capabilities or adequate preparation. What happens if challenge and assessment is present but no support? You may not have the appropriate resources and you may lose your motivation. Assessment and support without challenge? You may find yourself “always doing what you’ve always done...and getting what you’ve always gotten.” Challenges bombard us constantly, both from our professional and personal lives.

Challenges can be overwhelming unless we restore balance by:

1. reducing the challenge, (which may not be an option), or
2. increasing the amount of information we have about our skills and abilities and seeking additional forms of support.

Both assessment and support are within our ability to manage.
Personal and professional development is an on-going process. A coaching relationship helps to increase your range of motion, broaden your repertoire of responses and gain perspective on your own experience. Most importantly, it helps you to apply your learning back to your biggest asset— yourself!

The ACS model (Assessment, Challenge, Support) was created by the Center for Creative Leadership, Greensboro, North Carolina, based on its research on leadership development.

Judy Futch is an organizational development consultant, providing leadership to organizations & communities by guiding through change/transformation processes, building collaboration & creating strategies to create a positive & productive future.
Judy Futch Consulting, judy@judyfutch.com.