Coach IgnitePart of the Management Ignition suite
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Intelligent coaching

Prepare for the conversation. Build the relationship.

Outline the person and the situation. Coach Ignite builds a GROW-structured conversation guide and a development summary, so you walk in ready to ask the questions that help them think for themselves.

Built on the GROW coaching model Three free uses, no card Ready in under two minutes

Talk or type. Describe the person and the situation the way it's in your head, out loud or on the keyboard, half-formed and messy. The tool does the tidying. That is what the sharpening check is for.

You know the answer, so you give it. It's faster, and it feels useful. But every problem you solve for someone is a problem they didn't learn to solve themselves.

Over time, that builds a team that brings you everything and decides nothing. Coaching is the opposite habit: you ask more than you tell, you listen for what isn't being said, and you let the person arrive at their own answer. It is slower in the room and it pays back for years. Coach Ignite gives you the questions to ask before you walk in, so the harder, better conversation is the one you actually have.

2.5–3working days a quarter handed back

The development conversation is the one managers most often skip.

Coaching takes time you rarely feel you have, so the conversation gets put off, and the quicker habit, solving it yourself, wins. The cost shows up later, in a team that can't run without you.

Coach Ignite prepares the conversation in a couple of minutes: the questions, the structure, the commitment check. Across the whole suite, for a manager with eight direct reports, the five tools hand back two and a half to three working days every quarter, and the conversations come out better than the rushed ones they replace.

Tested in a workshop with 27 managers from 11 businesses across the UK, Europe and the US.

How it works

One real coaching conversation, start to finish.

Here is every step, on a conversation a manager actually needs to have. Nothing staged.

The situation Sarah Chen is now leading the ACME strategy review. She's capable, but she defers to senior people in the room and looks to Jim for the answer. The coaching conversation is about helping her trust her own judgement.
1
Describe the situation

Tell it who you're coaching, and what about.

You type or speak the situation in your own words. Who the person is, their role, and the specific thing the conversation is about. Not "improve performance", but the real behaviour or development need in front of you.

Jim describes Sarah's situation as it is: she's leading the ACME review, she's strong on the detail, but she holds back from backing her own read in a room with senior people.

Coaching is helping somebody think more clearly about what they already know.
coachignite.themessagebusiness.com
The Coach Ignite form: your name, the person you are coaching, their role as senior account manager, and the coaching topic describing Sarah leading the ACME strategy review
Type it or speak it. The real situation, not a general area.
2
Choose the goal, profile the person

What do you want them to leave with?

Pick what the conversation is for: awareness, so they understand themselves better; commitment, so they agree to act; or reflection, so they pull the learning out of an experience. Then read their skill and confidence on this.

For Sarah, Jim chooses awareness, because the work here is helping her see her own judgement is sound. From her profile, the tool reads the Growth Zone and recommends a fortnightly coaching rhythm with a short written update beforehand.

The coaching habit is asking: where is this person on the grid right now, and what do they need more of, challenge or support?
coachignite.themessagebusiness.com
The goal and profile screen: Awareness selected as the conversation goal, skill and confidence both Medium for Sarah, a Growth Zone assessment, and a recommended fortnightly coaching check-in
Awareness, commitment, or reflection, then the rhythm that fits.
3
The guidance

It names the one thing to hold in mind.

The tool opens with the single most important thing for this conversation. For Sarah, that she leaves understanding her own strengths and feeling both supported and challenged as a strategic leader on the ACME account.

Then it sets the challenge and support balance, and gives you a manager note with the exact words to send Sarah beforehand. Advance notice is built in, so she comes to the conversation prepared.

The test of good coaching is what happens afterwards. Does the person leave feeling more capable, or less?
coachignite.themessagebusiness.com
The coaching guide output: a navy panel naming the most important thing to hold in mind, a challenge and support zone card, a coaching cadence card, and a manager note with what to say to Sarah beforehand
The most important thing, and the words to send first.
4
The conversation guide

The questions, in GROW order, specific to Sarah.

The guide walks the conversation through GROW: goal, reality, options, will. The questions are grounded in Sarah and the ACME review, not lifted from a generic coaching script. It opens by asking her view first, never with Jim's assessment.

The Will section closes with the commitment check, a one-to-ten on how committed she feels, with a clear instruction: if she's below seven, go back to options and find what's missing. Then a development summary, written to share with Sarah after the session.

If the commitment is below seven, the conversation isn't finished. Surface what's holding it back.
coachignite.themessagebusiness.com
The output: a coaching conversation guide marked manager only with GROW-ordered questions starting with advance notice and asking Sarah's view first, and a development summary marked to share after the conversation
GROW questions for you, a development summary to share.
What you get

Two documents, one for your eyes only and one to share.

Coach Ignite, like every tool in the suite, produces two editable and shareable outputs. A GROW conversation guide to run the session, marked 'manager only'. And a development summary you give Sarah afterwards, marked 'to share after the conversation'.

Manager only, private

The conversation guide

GROW questions, in order. Never shared.

Advance notice, and ask first

Tell Sarah beforehand what the conversation is for, so she comes prepared. Open by asking her view, not yours.

Will, and the commitment check

"On a scale of one to ten, how committed are you to these actions?"

If she's below seven, go back to options. Something hasn't landed yet.

The development summary

Written to the team member. A record of what you both agreed.

Sarah,

We talked through the ACME review: what you want from the room, where you're confident, and where you want support engaging the COO and CSO.

You've decided what to do next and when. We meet again in a fortnight to see how it's going.

You've got the judgement for this. The conversation was about helping you trust it.

It builds the habit of asking, not telling.

Two principles, every time

Give advance notice, so the person comes prepared. Ask their view first, so you hear where they actually are before you say a word. Both are built into every guide, whatever else you put in.

The commitment check is the difference

A conversation that ends with a number below seven hasn't ended. The guide tells you to go back and find what's holding it back, the gap where most good intentions quietly die.

70%
leave for lack of growth

Of professionals who've left a job, many cite too little development, often under managers who hold on to the work instead of coaching others to do it. Source: McKinsey.

Prepare your next development conversation with it.

Pick one person you've been over-helping. Run the situation through once. Walk in with questions instead of answers, and see what changes.

Open Coach Ignite See the full suite

Three free uses. No card required.