Assess how your partner did with appreciative coaching from their own perspective. For instance, what are the strengths of the plan? Would you have proceeded the same way given the circumstances? Were there questions that you would have asked that the peer did not? Does the plan seem like a potential success? A written write-up of each partner's assessment of their peers is required in one master document that one of you will submit on behalf of both partners by the lesson's close.

Appreciative Coaching & Analysis (Individual) -

My client is the co-owner of a DEI consulting firm that she runs with a family member. She has been in that position for 3 years and has mostly relied on her more experienced and extroverted partner to pull clients. She would like to take on more networking and marketing opportunities herself but is nervous about not being as social or connected as her partner and feels overwhelmed by where and how to start taking action.

Our first meeting will be a discussion of the client's signature strengths (intellection, context, learner, ideation, and input); how the 4 stages of AI develop and build on each other; and the 5 basic AI principles. Because of her learner strength, I think she will appreciate understanding the theories and concept behind the AI process. At the end of the meeting we will set the affirmative topic together, my suggestion will be "Finding amazing clients for our services".

Each phase of the project will include questions designed with the Simultaneity Principle in mind - that asking the question in and of itself will affect our relationship and how the client views the situation. During the Discovery phase, we will spend a couple sessions exploring her relationship to her work and the stories she tells herself about getting new clients. Before these sessions, she will get the following questions to reflect on:

What are you good at? What comes easily to you?

What do you like about your job?

What are your favorite services to offer?

What are your values around networking and marketing?

Who do you like to talk to about your work?

What has been your best client experience so far?

I will be cognizant of the language she uses to describe herself and her work, how she views her co-founder, and clients (Constructionist Principle). We will focus on her strengths and skillset more than her perceived deficiencies. As someone with intellection strength, she will want to come at the 'problem' from all sides, so I will be careful to bring us back to a strengths-based focus as needed (Positive Principle).

In the Dream phase, we will leverage her context and ideation strengths to encourage her to build on the past and tap into new ideas to create her vision of ideal networking and marketing situations (Poetic principle). Brainstorming with a whiteboard might be a fun exercise for her. Also, with her input strength, using a tool like Pinterest might help her collect the different images that help her envision an ideal future. We will explore:

What do you want your brand to be?

Who would you like to talk to about your business?

Who is your ideal client?

What would you like that interaction to look like?

What kind of networking would you find energizing?

Once she has a concrete understanding of what she wants her marketing and networking efforts to look like, we will move into the Design phase (Anticipatory principle). She can leverage some of her learner skills by using the internet or reading books or taking classes to help answer the following questions:

Who would you like to design your website? Is that something you'd like to learn to do ?

What are other fun ways you could market your business?

What are alternative ways to network?

What organizations or people would you like to reach out to?

What professional networking organizations offer workshops that you would like to attend?

What milestones do you want to reach in networking?

What milestones do you want to reach in marketing?

How will you track this information?

How often will you journal?

How will you celebrate success?

How will share what you've learned and are learning with your partner?

We will work together to develop ongoing practices that she can use to be taking actions to gain clients on a monthly basis. She can commit to journaling (Intellect) after each marketing or networking attempt to reflect on what worked and what didn't work. As someone with input as a strength, she might use a spreadsheet or database to track information about clients, marketing, and networking as well.

When she is ready to start experimenting with her Design ideas we will move into the Destiny phase where she will experiment the different ideas she's developed to implement her vision. We schedule a couple check-in sessions where we can discuss and reflect on her progress, reassess tactics and strategies, and celebrate her wins.