My favourite coaching tools: Belbin's Team Roles

Caveats:
Before I get into the details of the Belbin Test: all my favourite coaching tools - free,
online, or other - need to be applied with sensible and cautionary advice from statistician
George EP Box: "all models are wrong, some are useful". I discuss this principle with
individual coachees, teams and team leaders this before giving them homework or some
brief presentation on Belbin's Team Role theory.
I also give a talk about the dangers of labels, and how labels applied to people become
truthes that get played out. (see Stephen R. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective
People (UK) (or US) for further information)
There are a number of ways to apply the Belbin Team Roles theory, which give differing
degrees of correctness. All provide valuable team member role insights and can be quite
usefully combined with team building activities or coachee plan assignments.
The easiest, and only sanctioned way to apply Belbin Team Roles Test, is to go online to
www.belbin.com and purchase the required number of tests for you and your team. The
online reports that are generated and emailed to you are fantastically detailed and
provide plenty of material to help a team improve and to give team members insights into
themselves as people. I highly recommend this approach for best results!
There is a free alternative Belbin Test that also works - albeit to some lesser scientific
and correct level:
Step 1: Read everything you can on Meredith Belbin, the history of the team role theory,
the opposition, and the advocates.
Step 2: Especially make sure to read
- http://www.belbin.com/content/page/49/BELBIN(uk)-2011TeamRoleSummaryDescriptions.pdf
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Role_Inventories
- http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_83.htm
Step 3: Have your coachee read the above links as well. Or in a team context, I discuss
the roles (Plant, Resource Investigator, Monitor Evaluator, Co-ordinator, Shaper,

Teamworker, Implementer, Completer Finisher, Specialist) and many of the points from
the 3 above links with the team.
Step 4: Now have the coachee or the team members self-select the order of the 9 roles as
they see themselves. Not really surprisingly, people know from previous feedback over
the years of their lives if they are extroverted or introverted; if they prefer analysing new
problems or finishing off final details of things; if they like to delegate or prefer to
receive direction; etc, etc)
Step 5 (for teams): Have the team members then rate each of the other members' top 3
roles as they see them. Again, not really surprising, team members also know how their
colleagues are.
Each team member can now combine and collate the results for themselves.
Step 6: Evaluate with the coachee/every team member how much resonance they feel
with the top 3 labels. Is there a match between self and team member perception? If not,
why not? Perhaps more feedback should be collected and then a re-evaluation. Every
situation is different and it is helpful to have loads more coaching tools available if and
when required!
Step 7 (optional): If at this stage the coachee or team really wants to evaluate still
further, a free online Belbin test is at: http://www.123test.com/team-roles-test/ but it
has clearly far fewer and less detailed questions than the actual Belbin test and I can't
attest to the correctness of its results at the time of writing this. Jo Keeler, from the
Belbin Institute as posted in the comments below, clearly indicates this "free Belbin test"
is an unsanctioned test (and therefore probably should be called something else to avoid
confusion!).
The Belbin Team Role for me is a very useful and powerful self-perception/awareness tool
that is easy to grasp by those with less time or psychology foundation. In some respects it
is not important that it is 100% accurate at this stage as it could be a reflection of
how/who the person actually wants to be. Other feedback from the workplace, or from
experiential team building, or training events will make the picture clearer for each
individual and the team as a whole - leading towards a higher performance team.

With more self-awareness of natural team role(s) placement, and the ability to sensibly
apply the model to other colleagues, opens up possibilities to understand more about the
workplace and what possible steps to take to change it/self as required.
For the coachee, this view can be used as input to their coaching plan, to set some goals
to acquire new skills and behaviours (eg a natural Plant who's ambition is to become a Coordinator) or wishes to improve their team's effectiveness (eg evaluating for a missing or
under-represented role).
For the team or the team leader, balance of roles is key. Too many of 1 role or a total lack
of a role, cause the team to behave in sub-optimal ways. Awareness of the roles and the
theory is useful to encourage people to acquire new behaviours if they're interested, to
set SMART goals (see my previous free coaching tool post: SMART Goals) to encourage
different outcomes, and even to help influence the next recruitment opportunity.

My favourite coaching tools: The CIA Of Any Situation

This was taught to me a few years back by one of the team leaders I was coaching in agile
mindset and approach to team and delivery. I am not sure where it originated as a
consequence and searches on Google have been non-satisfactory.
Essentially, as the C-I-A was explained to me, every situation that one finds oneself in (as
I explain to coachees), one asks upto 3 questions:
Question 1: Can I Control this situation?
If yes, then Control it (by using your management position or leadership)!
If no, then ask the next question,
Question 2: Can I Influence this situation?
If yes, then Influence it (by working with your network, expanding your network,
orchestrating and asking your network for assistance in changing the situation)
If no, then ask the next question,

Question 3: Can I Accept this situation?

If yes, then Accept it (by opening your heart and open your mind and embracing it, so
that your new personal reality becomes your new personality)
If no, then you have only 1 healthy choice - to leave the situation.
Failure to Accept the situation, and not leave this situation will cause you stress and all
the negative consequences that stress brings. It will lead to negative behaviours and
cynical comments leaking out, causing you to be mis-labelled further deepening the
pygmalion effect and negative vicious reinforcement cycles. (see my post on labels being
applied to people and more importantly how you can help the team "fix" the problem)
So you can use the CIA for personal coaching, and you can use it for team coaching quite
effectively as well. I typically use it for helping teams understand if the potentially
SMART-ifiable productivity improvement and/or happiness improvement actions they have
proposed within the team's periodic Retrospectives are actually Achievable.
I did see several parallels in Stephen R Covey's excellent The 7 Habits of Highly Effective
People where he discussed the 3 spheres that we live and work within as concentric
circles. The Control Sphere is the smallest space, followed by the Influence Sphere,
followed by the Accept Sphere. Basically we need to realise how little in life we do
control, versus how much we think we control. An example he uses is the common illusion
of control when driving in our carefully selected vehicle...and getting stuck in a traffic
jam. We think because we can control our music selection, volume, air temperature and
fan speed, we have control, but actually we have to accept that the dynamic system of
the traffic on the roads is in control, we have very very little in reality.
I am planning on adding another 2 posts to extend the conversation and observations I've
had about this CIA over the past 5+ years, so keep an eye out for the followups!

My favourite coaching tools: Labels and Believing Is Seeing!

Caveats:
This is a group exercise and great for team building. At certain times during the session
some people's emotions might rise due to frustration at being misunderstood.
As coach you MUST manage the level of frustration (a little is good, too much is bad) in
order to allow the group to fully experience and gain from the steps below. Most
participants however are quick to see the simulation for what it is and self-control
themselves accordingly. If you feel unsure, practice with a smaller group of friends, for
instance, who can safely give you feedback throughout to ensure you are able to
facilitate it correctly to the intended benefits.
Always remain on the safe side - for your sake and for your participants' also!
Required:
- Enough labels to get people into groups of 6 - preferably the labels are on little hats so
that the people who are labelled do not know their own label (sometimes I use post-its
stuck to foreheads but this does not work in warm sweaty conditions, sometimes paper
tape/medical tape but have the same problem with sweaty foreheads, sometimes name
badges tied on short strings under people's chins).
- Labels should be written (or use symbols) big enough so that other people can read
them from 2-3 feet away.
- Labels suggested in Quick Team-Building Activities for Busy Managers: 50 Exercises That
Get Results in Just 15 Minutes by Brian Cole Miller include "laugh at me", "disagree with
me", "leader", "brown noser", and many more - *BUY THE BOOK*. I've also used Belbin's
team roles for labels, as well as Belbin team role opposites (see Coaching with Belbin for
details). Sometimes I just make them up based on the group and behaviours I have
observed.
- Printouts for half the group of Stephen R Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
(*BUY THE BOOK AND READ FOR FULL DETAILS*) Young Lady:

- Printouts for half the group of Stephen R Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
(*BUY THE BOOK*) Old Lady:

- A digital projector and computer in order to show the group Stephen R Covey's The 7
Habits of Highly Effective People (*BUY THE BOOK*) Both Ladies picture:

- 15 minutes for the first "Label Game" session

- 15 minutes for the second "Believing is Seeing" session
- 15-30 minutes for open group discussion to ensure lesson properly understood and
people back to normal
Step 1:
Explain the basics of the "Label Game" to the participants:
- Everyone will receive a "secret" (from them) label that they should not see before the
end of the exercise
- No one should tell someone else what their label is
- The groups will be given 7 minutes to plan something (department party, a new fun
game, who to choose to evacuate a doomed earth, survive for 24 hours in a desert/artic,
etc)
- As the group discusses, the participants must proact/react to the label of the person
- By the end of 7 minutes, people will be asked what they think their label is, before
being allowed to look
Step 2:
Break the group into sub-groups of 6, distribute and place the labels on each member so
that they are unable to see their own label.

Step 3:
Start the timer! Remind the participants about good timebox strategies to ensure they
succeed with their discussion. Help with time keeping.
Step 4:
Time up! Let the groups discuss amongst themselves and get an indication of how many
people realised within 7 minutes of simple discussion, what label they were wearing!
Usually >75% correctly guess or infer their label based on how others were interacting
with them.
Step 5:
Open the discussion up to the whole group. Good questions like "How did it feel to be
treating people according to their label?", "How did it feel to be treated according to a
label that was not visible to you?", "What about the labels we're treating each other with
continuously in the day to day work?", "What are the dangers of labels?", "What are the
pros of having labels?", "How do our labels affect us?", "Labels versus Job Title?" and see
what thoughts and feelings are provoked by the group.
Be strict with your own time management as there is still the second session to run!
Step 6:
Get people to become 1 group again, this time split them down the middle.
Step 7:
Without making it obvious that there are 2 different pictures being given out, distribute
the "Young Lady" above facedown to half the group, and distribute the "Old Lady" above
facedown to the other half of the group.
Ask the participants to turn over the picture and stare at it for 30 seconds, and then to
put it away. Help them with timekeeping and ensuring they're focussing on their own
picture only.
Step 8:
With the pictures away, turn on the projector and show the group the "Both Ladies"
picture.

Step 9:
Ask the participants to stick their hands up if they recognise the picture. Now ask 1
"random" person from the "Old Lady" group what they see. Then ask 1 "random" person
from the "Young Lady" group what they see.
Step 10:
Now ask the whole group to raise their hands those who see an Old Lady? And then ask
those to raise their hands who sees a Young Lady? Act confused and ask how is it possible surely they're looking at exactly the same, unmoving picture on the screen - how could it
be that people are seeing different things? And then ask who sees both an Old Lady and a
Young Lady?
The groups are usually quite fun and energised by this time so allow them to discuss and
try to resolve the different perceptions they have. People will come up to the screen and
start tracing out the different curves, arguing, getting frustrated, getting amused and
slowly all or most of the group will eventually see both pictures. (as an aside, what does
it mean if someone is unable, even after a lot of help, to see both ladies?)
Step 11:
Now explain it the way Stephen R Covey does: "It's not logical, it is psychological!"..."the
way we see the problem IS the problem!"
Step 12:
And now ask similar questions of the Label Game session. Ask how this kind of knowledge,
this insight might have changed how they approached problems in the past, and how they
will approach problems in the future? Are the problems restricted to work problems, or
are "people problems" also now more approachable? And so on.
Before running this session, I strongly recommend buying both books linked above and
reading them properly for more many more details than I've summarised here.
I find the 2 exercises even more beneficial for individuals I am coaching who attend,
especially if they have already covered Belbin's Team Role Inventory Theory, Myers Briggs
Type Indicator and Preferred Auditory, Visual or Kinaesthetic Communication Styles. For
additional benefit, these sessions, run before coachees attempt their first feedback

gathering from peers, also help to give people more self confidence in the collection, in
the giving, and in the understanding of the content+emotion they receive from other
people. We are all human, even if often it appears we are, or they, are not! ;-)

My favourite coaching tools: SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable,

Responsible person assigned, Timebound) Goals
Caveats:
The SMART/S.M.A.R.T. acronym has slightly different permutations depending on where
and when people learn about it, and where and when they apply it. This is the version I
use for the purposes of coaching.
SMART Goals are extremely powerful change enablement tools for individuals as well as
teams. I use them for 1-1 meetings (see my previous post: My Favourite Coaching Tools: 11 Meetings, and Esther Derby and Johanna Rothman's Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of
Great Management ) as well as Retrospectives (see Diana Larsen's Agile Retrospectives:
Making Good Teams Great ). I also use them for individual coaching plans.
Required:
Some past/background information and/or knowledge and a desire to change something
in the future.
Paper and pen
Step 1: I write up/down the labels I would like the coachee, or the team I am coaching to
apply as:
S - Specific
M - Measurable
A - Achievable
R - Responsible person assigned
T - Timebound
Step 2: Then I give some examples of bad SMART goals and rework them to better/good
SMART goals, eg:

"improve our office"

Is not good, because it does not come even close to fitting at least the acronym!
S - improve our office
M - it is tidy
A - we can do this
R - us all
T - end of next month
This is clearer and agreed by the coachee/team that there is significant progress.
However I now point out where possible problems could be - and I do this in any order as
SMART is not necessarily order-specific!
T - end of next month....?
Is the end of next month a weekend, a Monday or a Friday? Does it make a difference in
our collective experience of deadlines? Is the change we're trying to bring about really
that hard that it will take so much time to do? What is a more challenging boundary for
the time? What prevents you from reaching this goal, and achieving the benefit, today?
Tomorrow? And with these kind of questions, even for a hypothetical example, it is clear
that a better goal and time boundary is more like which is clearer and "in focus":
T - end of this week
But this too is not really specific enough as there are all sorts of things that can go wrong
as ends of weeks have a nasty way of suddenly happening to people and challenging
change goals get forgotten in the rush to get away, or get half-done. Is this the morning,
noon or afternoon? Or is COB (Close of Business)? Compare to:
T - By 12pm on Friday 8 June 2012.
That's specific! Anyone can now figure out if the goal was achieved definitely by that
time, and, importantly the day, date and time is crystal clear and easy to
remember/remind about if required which helps to ensure people keep the goal in mind the sense of urgency automatically increases as the focal point draws nearer.

Now let's look at R... "us all". In team situations, I've found it more effective to actually
name a leader for the goal, than allowing a team to loosely assign "team". This leader will
execute the Measure and if the goal has not been achieved, encourage the team or
provide feedback to the team. The team self-selects the Responsible Person Assigned who
uses the opportunity to improve on the craft of servant-leadership.
R - Joe Smith
Now I might flip to S ... "improve our office". What the heck? Does this mean get interior
decorators in/architects/cleaners/new furniture/pictures on walls/pictures off
walls/bring in a stereo/stop playing heavy metal/etc/etc?
A nice open question helps really get the problem space and possible solution spaces
identified: "What of our office should be improved?". For instance "tidiness" might be
more specifically phrased as:
S - All our desks to be clear of food, cups, plates, litter, loose papers and dust
Which could be even more improved on by adding if "daily" as opposed to "weekly" is the
true intent...to look professional when clients visit.
S - All our desks to be clear of food, cups, plates, litter, paper and dust at the end of
every day.
Right so far we have a very clear mental image formed of what needs to happen, by when
and who will be checking it. How?
M - "is tidy"
Is subjective! We're looking for 1 objective measure of success that the coachee/team
and coach actually agree on (in this case the coach becomes a very cheap additional layer
of assurance).
Again, the pause and wait for the coachee/team to come up with objective
measures...perhaps

M - There are 0 instances of food, 0 cups, 0 plates, 0 litter, 0 papers and no dust on
any desk or table in the entire office by 6pm everyday
Extremely hard to argue that! And even more tricky to achieve if there are empty
desks/tables in the office that are used but not "owned" by anyone. How to ensure
accountability for "entire office" - which is more the motivation that we discovered along
the way - a professional office that clients see when they visit?
These questions/fine tunings are discussed and eventually negotiated ... the Responsible
Person Assigned takes notes if this is for a team! :-)
And finally, with such a clear picture in mind for S, M, R and T the final buy-in from the
coachee/team is the A. Is this Achievable?
A - Yes, this is achievable!
It is extremely important that the coachee or the team fully buy-in to this goal otherwise
motivational energy to do something different is going to be lacking and most times the
uplifting goal will not be achieved or it will be achieved but undermined. In which case
the session creating the SMART goal is a partial waste of precious time.
And perhaps another 1-2 examples like this, or perhaps into Step 3 - letting the
coachee/team attempt for themselves!
Step 3: Now I let the team have their first attempt:
S - improve team culture
M - team is happier
A - we can do this!
R - us all!
T - tomorrow!!
The first time I saw a team copy my poor example it stunned me. Then I realised,
especially over time and this copying occurred repeatedly, it's the simplicity and first
thing people trying this for the first time do: they take the first step they feel

comfortable with, and have seen in the recent past. And know they will be able to
improve it with my assistance - as I showed them in the worked examples. And many
seem to find it fun to start so obviously wrong!
Anyway, in this example it looks good, and it sounds good - HOORAY! It even fits the
acronym slots, so HOORAY x2 for the coachee/team! I sometimes even say encouraging
things like "I truly admire your passion and enthusiasm and am encouraged by the rising
energy levels.... however, this is not a good SMART goal for the following reasons..." or "I
like this start to this goal! And already it is clear based on the worked examples what has
to be fixed - so who's first with a suggestion?" Pretty much repeating all that was said in
Step 2, in different orders and constantly using the worked examples as reference point.
The main thing is to get everyone collaborating and praising successful steps in unfamiliar
territory. Giving people the confidence to try.
For example - I help the coachee or team iterate through their SMART goal attempt and
improve it incrementally - this helps get a lot of buy-in from each participant who
collaborates and agrees to the exact wording (2 of the jobs of a facilitator is to ensure
everyone in the room is heard and is also contributing).
Is "improve team culture" specific?
"Kind of", I might say "...but improve means different things to different team members!".
The same for the word "team" as well "culture". At this point I pause......and eventually
the coachee or the team start to brainstorm a different way of saying what they want to
say. At this time I encourage a bit of divergence of ideas for a while as some of these are
relevant for other parts of the acronym if not specifically for Specific. After enough time I
encourage convergence by playing back the ideas that have emerged and a better
Specific statement at this time might begin to look like:
Team:
We have fun together
We go for lunch together
We go for lunch together to the Fabulous Restaurant that we now all agree on
together

Individual:
Produce a high quality weekly team report
Take my weekly report to my manager and discuss what parts are good, and what
parts can be improved.
Take my weekly team report to my manager and discuss in detail which parts can be
improved and set SMART goals for each of those parts so that I fully understand the
required changes and their importance.
After iterating these kinds of statements, very specific pieces of the puzzle get teased
out and produce excellent SMART Goals! As the coachee/team become accustomed to the
required level of specification, and the forces that are experienced during their creation,
they get better and better at this

My favourite coaching tools: The Five Why's / 5Y's

Caveats:
The 5 Y's is absolutely simple and brilliant for multiple contexts - both for individuals and
especially for teams and groups. There is 1 caveat - the answers provided to the different
level of "Why?" can sometimes lead off-course or way off-course. Part of the craft of
learning to apply the 5 Why's successfully is some critical analysis/reflection to ensure
you get relevant answers at each of the "Why?" questions.
I am not sure where I first read about the "5 Why's". It could have been in a management
textbook that also covered Ishikawa Diagrams AKA Fishbone/Cause-Effect Analysis
Diagrams. Certainly I found Taiichi Ohno's Five Whys tool usefully described in Esther
Derby and Diana Larsen's Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great and even more
usefully described in Eric Ries' The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates
Radically Successful Businesses ).
This tool is deceptively simple looking and incredibly easy to get wrong.
Required:
Paper and pen, OR Whiteboard and marker
A fault/mistake/problem/error that has occurred
Step 1: Ask "Why did the fault/mistake/problem/error occur?"
Answer "There was some reason in the some place that caused the

fault/mistake/problem/error"
E.g.
Why did the presentation not work properly at the event?
-> It was an MS Powerpoint 2010 version file and the computer was running MS
Powerpoint 2000.
Step 2: Ask "Why was there that reason in that place?"
Answer "There was something underlying that reason in some underlying place"
E.g.
Why did Daryl try to present his newer version on an older version computer?
-> His laptop did not work with the room's projector
Step 3: Repeat another 3 times to get to 5 Levels.
E.g.
Why did his laptop not work with the room's projector?
Daryl's laptop's video outputs were not compatible with the projector's inputs
Step 4: E.g.
Why did Daryl not have a converter with him?
Daryl did not call the venue in advance to check the supported interfaces
Step 5: E.g.
Why did Daryl not call the venue in advance?
Daryl was too busy and forgot
Too busy to ensure a professional presentation? I think we need a new procedure ... but
will it be about company employees who present at public events or will it be about
company employees who are working on projects that are forced to work in crisis mode?
Or...?
And I can imagine an alternate Step 3
A.Step 3: E.g.
Why did Daryl not export his newer file to the older format to run the
presentation on the older computer?

Daryl was running late and too stressed to remember this feature existed
A.Step 4: E.g.
Why was Daryl running late?
Daryl left the office late
A.Step 5: E.g.
Why did Daryl leave the office late?
Daryl was doing some urgent project work that caused him to leave late
Perhaps we need those possible procedures above. Perhaps Daryl needs some
management mentoring/coaching on his time management skills or his prioritisation
mechanisms. Or on his confident knowledge of PowerPoint's features.
It is very important is that the underlying cause and/or location is queried at each level.
Do some critical analysis at each response and ensure the coachee/team is drilling
downward on a realistic path. Sometimes there are multiple paths to drill, spend the time
and drill them all, especially until everyone is much more familiar with the tool, at which
point you'll notice far fewer possible paths to drill down as people are better expressing
the correct underlying cause and/or layer first-time.
The final Why often highlights a human problem. Typically a system improvement is the
correct solution to ensure the human problem is not repeated. For individual
engagements this is usually a training item and/or a couple of roleplay scenarios. For
team engagements it could be training or a new procedure or an update to an existing
procedure. Be on the safe side and read Four Days With Dr Deming - better yet get your
coachee or team members to study it BEFORE they try to fix the wrong problem with the
wrong approach (and accidentally make things worse).
Done correctly, it is possible to produce a correction action or step at every level
uncovered/traced that would ensure that not only the level's specific fault in this
instance is not repeated again, but also to prevent similar class faults - which is a major
win!

My favourite coaching tools: No Time To Improve Agile Retrospective

Cartoon
This is a short and sweet one that always brings a little smile to my lips (and some or
many team members) when I bring it up in front of the "we're too busy with important
stuff" teams during agile retrospectives, or preceding an agile retrospective due to too
much resistance because "we are too busy"!

From
http://i2.wp.com/ecbiz168.inmotionhosting.com/~perfor21/performancemanagementcompanyblog.com/wpcontent/uploads/2014/03/tobusytoimprove.jpg

It seems no one is currently sure where the original is, or who created it. For more
modern updates there have been plenty, just search Google!
Once we all get past the uncomfortable "Gulp" moment after this cartoon is presented,
the team discusses what things are keeping the team members too busy to think about or
to reflect or to introduce improvements to the way(s) they are working.
I might even throw in the original Albert Einstein quote: If I had an hour to solve a
problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about
solutions.
And/or I might put this one in front of the team to reflect upon: "Give me six hours to
chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe." - Abraham Lincoln
If there are still some people needing deeper understanding of the situation they are in, I
would introduce them to, and request them to, complete the Covey Time Management

Usage Matrix (also known as self-study lightweight time and motion study). After this step
is complete, especially including the lunch breaks, random web surfing, tea breaks,
urgent phone calls and all the other really important things everyone does with intention
or with serendipity at work as normal Business-as-Usual, then people are open to the
message, and a humble inquiry!
Always respect the people you are introducing this too, and respect it is THEIR context
and THEIR experience that matters, not yours, as external coach / observer / noninvested in the focussed business outcome! And remember why you are introducing this to
them - something they are doing must be wasting energy in YOUR ?humble? opinion. Be
careful and go gently!

My favourite coaching tools: Stephen R Covey's Four Quadrants For Time

Usage
Caveats:
Another very simple and effective tool to provide, to teach, yet the power of habit and
the interference of self-perception often means that coachees struggle to fully deploy the
Four Quadrants and learn from the data they collect about themselves. Practice will be
required especially by those who are "too busy" - in fact as a coach you may have to help
your coachee capture all the correct details by seating yourself near them if possible.
I first read about this tool in Stephen R Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
(UK) (or US) which provides a link to a PDF containing basically the steps below. I believe
the tool is actually presented in First Things First (UK) (or US) co-authored by Stephen
and A. Roger Merrill which I have not read yet.
Required:
Sheet of A4 and a pen
A day in the life of the coachee
Ruler (optional)
Step 1: Help your coachee to create 4 quadrants on the piece of paper. Turn the paper
lengthwise and draw a vertical line through the middle as well as a horizontal line also
through the middle.

Step 2: Label Column 1: "Urgent" and Column 2: "Not Urgent"

Step 3: Label Row 1: "Important" and Row 2: "Unimportant"
Step 4: Pick a day in the life of the coachee where they will capture all the tasks and
activities they engage in, on this matrix. A simple 1 worder should be sufficient.
As a coach with a very busy coachee, you might seat yourself nearby and create the same
matrix for your coachee to compare with later.
Step 5: At the end of the day, the coachee should have approximately 30 words. Some
might have as few as 5-10 (in which case your own observation version might be required,
or simply more practice).
Step 6: Ask the coachee to guesstimate how much time was spent performing each of the
tasks and activities noted.
Step 7: Now calculate the percentage of time spent in each of the quadrants
Step 8: Now label the top left quadrant as "I: Burned Out", the top right quadrant as "II:
Change Agent", the bottom left quadrant as "III: Bored But Busy" and the bottom right
quadrant as "IV: Fired"
You can use Rory Bowman's Public Domain picture to discuss the quadrants further:

Covey Matrix

Step 9: Put the date on the sheet of paper and have your coachee either punch holes and
file it, or take a photograph and file that safely on email/computer
Step 10: Put a note in the calendar to repeat this exercise in about a month to see if
there has been any shift.
Usually the 2nd and 3rd running of the tool by the coachee does result in a small change
to the amount of time spent in Quadrant II - where Covey suggests people should be. This
is because the coachee is trying to improve themselves, and are now aware of the danger
of Quadrant IV "work", as well as, unfortunately, trying to improve/change to impress you
as the coach. Make sure to reiterate that coaching is for their benefit and that they're
trying to break bad habits and increase good habits to improve their happiness at work, to
become more effective, to get promoted even.
Some coachees get quite excited and suggest creating and completing 1 of these every
day but I advise against this as it just creates more data, which needs to be interpreted
and could result in overload / not seeing the wood for the trees. Sometimes though, I do
ask the coachee to put 4 questions on the wall/monitor in front of them at work: "Burn

out?", "Bored?", "Fired?" and "Change agent?" which seems to have quite a positive effect
for the first few weeks - until the new thought processes are more familiar.
Change is hard, and change takes time and dedication to make happen, especially to/for
oneself.