Coaching a client through a role redesign
This is for you when a client has decided the role is a dead end, and the only question is grit it out or walk. They treat the job as fixed. But the trouble may be the shape of the work, not the whole role.
You need your client's results: The Five Types of Work, near the back of their Career Discovery report. It names the work that energizes them, the target the redesign pulls toward. Without it, you're working from a guess, and the redesign turns into generic advice.
A job is really three movable parts: the tasks, the people, and what the work is for, each with more give than a title admits. Reshaping all three is job crafting. About thirty minutes.
- Sketch the role as it is, in three layers. Have them list the tasks in a normal week, then who they do each with, then what they privately think the work is for. Keep it concrete, not the job description.
- Read it against the work that energizes them. Open their primary and complement in The Five Types of Work. Mark each task: energizing, draining, or neutral. The pattern shows fast: their best work is barely there, while draining tasks have taken over.
- Draw the "after." One reshape per layer. A task to grow, trade, or reframe toward their primary type; their Aligned Work Areas cards show what that work looks like. One relationship to add or change. One story to retell about what a core task is really for.
When the client sees the "after" is reachable without quitting, the recognition has landed. Let it sit, then use the questions below.
- Close on one small experiment, to run before any decision to leave. One piece of the after, small enough to try inside the current job. Tie it to their week and make it observable: "For two weeks, I take X and hand off Y, then check Friday if the week felt different."
They leave with two things: the before-and-after sketch, and one experiment with a date on it. The exit question can wait for the evidence.
Coaching questions
This isn't a worksheet. Once the client sees the role has give, pull whatever fits the room:
Loosening the "it's fixed" story
- Where did you first decide the role couldn't change?
- If you couldn't leave and couldn't complain, what would you change about the week?
- Which part of this job did you build yourself, without being told to?
- What are you treating as fixed that might just be unquestioned?
Finding the reshape
- Which task, if it filled more of the week, would change how you feel by Friday?
- Who could you be doing more of your best work with?
- If you described this work to someone you respect, what would you want it to be for?
Moving to something you can try
- What is the smallest version of this you could try without asking permission?
- What would you need to see in two weeks to know the shape of the work, not the whole role, was the problem?
- Who would notice if you changed this, and how would you want them to find out?
