Episode 31: Baseline Report Report in Practice

Episode 31: The Baseline Report in Practice — The Coaching Session This episode is where the framework meets real coaching. Using a real Baseline Report, we walk through a complete coaching session with Jenny — a Connector, specifically a Unifier — and pay particular attention to the moments where the WorkStyles profile and the Personal Inventory tell different stories about the same person. That divergence is where the richest coaching intelligence lives. This episode shows coaches exactly how to read it, name it, and use it to open the conversations that actually move something. 

Transcript

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Team Trek Coach Training Podcast Episode thirty one The Baseline Report in Practice The Coaching Session In the last episode we walked through the baseline individual report section by section, what each section contains, what it's designed to surface, and what coaches need to understand about its design to use it well. This episode is about what that looks like in practice. We're going to walk through a real coaching session using a real baseline report. One person, both instruments. And we're going to pay particular attention to the moments that matter most. Not the moments where the data confirms what everyone already expected, but the moments where the two instruments tell different stories about the same person. That divergence, when the work styles profile predicts one thing and the PI reveals another, is where the richest coaching intelligence lives. And this particular report has some of the most instructive divergence we've seen. Let's meet the person. Her name is Jenny. Jenny is a connector, specifically a unifier. The subtype we covered in episode eighteen core drive team evolution, helping people grow together around a shared mission. Natural communication gift inspirational. She rallies people, clarifies purpose, and makes the work feel meaningful. Cultural architect who makes belonging feel like the natural state of the team. That is the type prediction. Hold it. Now let's look at what the personal inventory actually showed. Jenny's grand total is seven point six one out of ten. Real spread across the profile. Genuine distinctions, which tells us immediately that she rated herself honestly. She didn't round everything up. Her two highest indexed behaviors are taking responsibility for her own development, scored a ten, indexed at one hundred and thirty one, and treating others with respect, also scored a ten at one hundred and thirty one. The floor of her profile is self confidence and demonstrating courage to take healthy risks. Both scored a five, indexed at sixty six. Significant gaps. That combination is not what the unifier profile predicts. And that divergence is the coaching session. Let's walk through the confirmation first, because coaches need to see both sides of this picture clearly. The unifier type predicts warmth, relational investment, commitment to people's growth, and a specific growth edge around protecting harmony over standards. Softening accountability, avoiding what might disrupt the relational fabric. Jenny's PI confirms all of that. Active listening. Nine. Indexed at one hundred eighteen. Collaboration nine at one hundred eighteen. Commit to team decisions nine at one hundred eighteen. These are the relational behaviors that make the unifier's cultural contribution real. They are genuinely developed and they are present in the data. The growth areas the type predicts are also visible. Speaking up and sharing ideas and concerns. Six. Indexed at seventy nine. Act on feedback from others. Six at seventy nine. Show appreciation for the contributions of others. Seven at ninety two. Seek constructive feedback. Seven at ninety two. These are below her personal average in exactly the places the unifier profile would predict. The behaviors that require directness, risk taking, and the willingness to disrupt harmony. So the confirmation is there. The type is accurate in its broad prediction. Relational warmth strong, direct voice cautious, accountability softened, pattern confirmed. But here is what's interesting. And this is what a coach who only reads confirmation will miss. The unifier profile also predicts emotional reactivity under pressure. The type is feeling dominant, processing through human impact, tracking the relational temperature of every conversation. Under stress, many connectors become less regulated. Their care for people becomes visible as anxiety or as loss of composure in difficult moments. Jenny's data says something completely different. Seek the facts before reacting to a situation. Nine. Remain calm during stressful circumstances. Nine at one hundred eighteen. Those are not unifier typical scores. They are the scores of someone who has developed significant emotional regulation, who has learned through deliberate effort or hard experience or both, to stay grounded when the relational stakes are high, and the instinct to react emotionally is most present. That development is real. It shows up in two independent items, both at the top of the profile. It is not a fluke. And then there's the highest score in the entire profile. Take responsibility for own development. A ten indexed at one hundred thirty one. The unifier who is highly developed on personal accountability, emotionally regulated under pressure, and follow through oriented, keep commitments is also at nine, at one hundred eighteen, is not the archetype. She is a version of the unifier who has already done meaningful personal development work. Which means the remaining growth edge is not the generic connector softness across the board. It is something much more specific. The gap between what Jenny privately holds, the observations, the concerns, the well considered read of what her team and her mission need, and what she publicly acts on. That's the coaching territory. And the data points to it from multiple directions simultaneously. Now let's build the full picture before we walk the session. The self confidence score is five, indexed at sixty six, at the floor of the profile. But look at what's true alongside it. She rated herself highest on taking responsibility for her own development. That is not the behavior of someone who lacks confidence in her potential. Someone who doesn't believe in their capacity doesn't invest this heavily in their own growth. What the low self-confidence score more precisely reflects, and the report names this explicitly, is situational hesitancy, not a fundamental deficit. The specific form of self doubt the unifier is structurally prone to doubt not in her capacity, but in her right to take up space at the moment when the mission most needs her to. That is a precise and important distinction. It changes the coaching entirely. If the coach reads a confidence deficit and addresses it by building general confidence, you're more capable than you think. They will miss the actual territory. If they read it as situational hesitancy and high relational stakes moments, and explore what specifically holds her back in those situations, that is the conversation that moves something. The courage score confirms it. Five. A move that might succeed but would damage important relationships feels genuinely higher stakes to her than it would to an improviser or a strategist. That is not irrationality. It is a values based risk calculus that makes complete sense within her profile. The development work is not to stop caring about relational cost. It is to recognize that the risks she avoids sometimes cost the team more than the risks she takes. Now part two, and here the coaching picture becomes significantly more complex. Jenny's ownership and agency composite is five point two nine out of seven. Generally solid. Two items stand out, both in opposite directions. The strongest item in her entire part two. She strongly disagrees that important things can be handled without real learning investment. Scored a seven. Maximum. That item is about whether she believes confidence substitutes for preparation. She does not. She knows that meaningful work requires genuine investment in learning. That belief is deeply consistent with her highest part one score, taking responsibility for her own development. These two data points, across separate instruments on different scales, are pointing at the same thing. Jenny believes in growth. She takes it seriously. She is not someone who coasts on natural ability. The most significant item in her part two is the setback item. Somewhat agree that she questions whether she is in the right role when she faces setbacks. Scored a three below the midpoint. For a person whose behavioral profile reflects genuine commitment, strong follow through, and deep investment in the work, that item is worth sitting with carefully. The report names two possible interpretations. The first, genuine misalignment. The role or the environment may not actually be a good fit. The second, the unifier's particular sensitivity to purpose and impact. When the work feels disconnected from meaning, when Jenny's contribution goes unrecognized, the instinctive question is whether the fit is right, rather than whether the conditions are right. And here is where the work environment data becomes critical. Tools and resources. A three. Somewhat disagree, the lowest single item in her entire part two profile. For a connector deeply motivated by meaningful impact, operating without adequate tools and resources creates a persistent friction between her internal commitment and her external capacity to fulfill it. That is a structural problem that belongs to the organization. Genuine care, appreciation, and support from others. A four. Neither agree nor disagree. Not a negative, not a positive, neutral. For a unifier whose engagement is deeply connected to feeling seen and valued, neutral is not a safe place to be. It is the specific environmental gap that, combined with the resource constraint, creates the conditions for the role questioning pattern. The report's interpretation, and it is the right one, is this. A person who is deeply invested in meaningful work, who does not consistently feel seen or supported, and who lacks adequate resources to perform well is not exhibiting a development gap when she wonders whether she is in the right role. She may be accurately reading a real misalignment in her environment. This is the both truths scenario. Jenny has real development work to do around speaking up, acting on feedback, and taking the risks her understanding warrants. And the environment is not fully supporting her. Both are true simultaneously. Now let's walk the session. Jenny has read the report before she sits down with the coach. She arrived prepared, which is consistent with her profile. The judging orientation and the high follow through scores both predict someone who does the pre-work before an important conversation. The opening. What's been sitting with you? Not what did you think? Which invites an evaluation. What's been sitting with you? Which invites whatever has been developing since she first read it. Jenny says, The courage and self-confidence scores. I've been thinking about those since I read it. She came in ready to go there. She didn't need to be led. The data landed. The coach doesn't accelerate toward solutions. The coach leans in. Tell me more about that. What happened when you read those scores? It's I know I hold back sometimes. I've always known that. But seeing it in the data, seeing it indexed against everything else I rated, it looked different. The gap looked bigger than I thought it was. That is recognition. Specific and personal. The coach's job is to stay with it rather than move past it. What do you think the gap is costing you? Pause, Jenny thinks. I think there are things I've known that I didn't say. And then the window closed, and the team didn't get the benefit of what I knew. She just named the central theme of her entire report in one sentence, not from the coach, from herself, from the data she owned because she rated herself. Now the coach has a choice that matters. The unifier's instinct, and the coach will feel the pull of this, is to move toward reassurance. But look at everything you bring. Look at these strength scores. The profile shows how much you contribute. That impulse is generous. It is also a form of the same pattern the report is asking Jenny to examine. Softening a hard truth to preserve the warmth of the interaction. Resist it. Stay in the territory she opened. You said the window closed. I want to understand what that moment feels like from the inside. When you're in a conversation where you have something important to say, and you hold it. What's happening in that moment? Jenny answers. She describes the read she does of the room, who is in what emotional state, what the relational temperature is, what she senses could be disrupted if she speaks. She describes the calculation that happens in real time? Is what I have to say worth the cost of saying it here, now with these people? And how often do you decide it isn't? She pauses for a long time. More often than I should. That is the admission that opens the development conversation. Not because the coach forced it, because the data gave her a mirror she couldn't look away from. At the right moment, not at the beginning, not as a data delivery, the coach brings in the part two material. I want to show you something in the part two data that I think adds an important layer to what we've been talking about. The setback item When I face setbacks at work, I question whether I'm in the right role. The coach lets Jenny read it. That one is honest. Tell me about that. And now Jenny says something she may not have said in a performance review or a manager one on one. About a period where the work felt disconnected from impact, where she was investing fully and the return felt uncertain. Where the question she kept returning to privately was Is this actually where I should be? The coach listens fully, and then asks the question the data prepared for. I want to hold something alongside that. Your work environment data shows a tools and resources score of three, somewhat disagree, the lowest item in your entire profile, and the genuine care and appreciation item is a four, neutral. For someone whose engagement is as connected to meaning and being seen as yours is, what do you think it costs you to operate in those conditions while also carrying the question of whether you're in the right place? Jenny takes a breath. It's exhausting. Honestly, I care so much about doing this well, and sometimes the environment makes that really hard. The coach nods. That's real, and I want to name something directly. Some of what we've been discussing, the holding back, the not speaking up. That is genuine development work for you. I believe that, and I also believe that some of it is a rational response to an environment where speaking up hasn't always felt safe or supported. Both of those are true at the same time. That is the both truths move. Not exonerating her from the development work, not letting the environment absorb what genuinely belongs to her, holding both truths simultaneously with equal weight. The relief that moves across her is visible. Because most people in Jenny's position have been carrying the full weight of the behavioral gap as a personal failure. And nobody has said clearly. The environment is also doing something here. Your job is to develop and to name what needs to change. The close. The session has gone deep. The report has more territory that hasn't been touched. The predictable tension section. The full development themes. Some of the blind spot detail. Leave it. We've covered a lot. Before we close, what is the one thing you're taking from this conversation? Jenny answers, in her own language. Something about the permission to trust her own read enough to say it out loud. Even before the timing is perfect, even when the room might get uncomfortable. The coach reflects it back. What I heard is someone who has already done significant personal development work. The emotional regulation, the follow-through, the accountability to herself, are all genuinely developed. The remaining edge is the specific courage to act on what she already knows. Not building a capability she doesn't have. Trusting the one she does. She nods. One thing. In the next 30 days. Specific and small enough to actually happen. What is one situation where you speak up before the window closes? She names it concrete. Real. Something she has been holding and knows she needs to say. The coach closes there. Not because the report is finished, because the session went somewhere real. And one genuine movement, one moment where Jenny trusts her own reed enough to act on it, is worth more than a comprehensive development plan she received but didn't own. That is the baseline report doing exactly what it was designed to do. Here is what to carry forward from this episode. Read the report before you walk in. Know the type prediction. Know where you expect confirmation, and where you're watching for divergence. Jenny's divergence, the emotional regulation and follow through strength that isn't typical for the unifier profile, told the coach everything about where the real development work lives. Not general connector softness. A very specific gap between private knowledge and public action. Confirmation validates, divergence opens questions. Ask them specifically. Part two is never optional. The setback item, the tools and resources score, the care and appreciation neutral. Those change the entire character of the behavioral conversation. Without Part II, the courage and confidence gaps look like pure personal development work. With part two, they are both personal development work and a rational response to a real environmental context. The both truths move is one of the most important coaching skills in this work. The development is real, and the environment is contributing. Holding both without letting either absorb the other is what makes the coaching honest. Don't move to reassurance when recognition arrives. Jenny opened the hard territory herself. The coach's job was to stay in it long enough for the insight to land, not to soften it out of care, and close with movement. One specific thing one thirty day window. The report will be there when she's ready for more. Jenny's growth is not about becoming bolder. It is about trusting that what she already carries is bold enough. That is the full series. thirty one episodes, two arcs, the personal inventory, the work styles framework, and the baseline report as an integrated coaching system. What you have now is not just a collection of profiles and frameworks, it is a way of seeing people, carefully, specifically, and with genuine respect for the complexity of what it means to be human in an organizational context. The hardwiring, the context, the behavior, the agency, the environment, the type, the moment, all of it together, a person, fully seen. That is what this work is for. Thanks for being here.