Authors note: As you read this article, please consider other strategies you may use to help a client

identify strengths and assets through pure coaching.

The Pfeifer 2010 Annual: Consulting, Elaine Beich, Editor, 2010 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
Reprinted by permission of Pfeifer, an imprint of Wiley. www.pfeifer.com Pp. 229-233.
Article Summary
In this controversial paper, coaches Rivera and Belf, representing diferent cultures, educational
backgrounds and professional felds, share how they came to the same conclusion, i.e.,
assessments do not belong in the profession of coaching. For this article, assessment refers to an
instrument given to a client for the purpose of giving the client data about self. Assessment does
not refer to the measurement of successful achievement of the clients goals. The authors explore
how the philosophy behind external assessments is inconsistent with the internal assessment
philosophy of coaching.
ASSESSMENTS AND COACHING: An incongruent pair
Teri-E Belf and Rafael Rivera
Many coaching professionals think that the profession of coaching includes, even requires, that
assessments be done. When we established the foundation for coaching we did not include any
formal assessments. The purpose of coaching was, and still is, to help clients increase their
awareness and increase their responsibility, that is to say, their ability to respond to the awareness.
To gain awareness, clients go inside. A core belief of coaching is that clients have their own answers
and through the application of the coaching process, clients have the opportunity to discover that
internal wisdom.
Belfs Background
A book that signifcantly infuenced me in college was One Little Boy by Dorothy Baruch. After a
school assessment a young boy was told he was a slow learner and this result earmarked him for
slow learner classes. Several years later, someone reversed this label and began working with him
as if he were a smart student. Guess what? This little boy became a smart student. The earlier
assessment was incorrect; we become who we are told we are. Our identity is often formed by
sometimes, incorrect external feedback.
Lest you think my bias against using assessments in coaching is unfounded, my background and
dissertation were all about assessments. My academic background includes a Masters and 60
credits beyond (C.A.G.S.) in Education Research, Evaluation and Learning. I chose this feld
because I wanted to explore how people learn and measuring learning involves assessments and
evaluation instruments. I was steeped in assessments.
In that decade of my work life, I was certifed to do almost every achievement and IQ test that
existed in English as well as those that were pictorially and kinesthetically based so they could be
administered cross culturally.
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My distaste began when I encountered many experiences where people adopted the test results as
so legitimate that they stopped being open to self-evaluation and self-validation. Test-takers would
consistently report that the results of the test was already known to them; the test results merely
validated what they intuitively knew. Now they had a label, someone elses label. Inappropriately
they would lock in their identity based upon the test results, for example, I am an ESTJ might be
said by someone who took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Those trained to administer
assessments are taught that the assessment is merely an indication, not the truth, whole truth and
nothing but the truth. However people receive results, forget that and assume the identity of the
label donned them. They forget that they had their own wisdom internally and proceed to rely
upon the external assessment as proof of who they are.
The Origins of Coaching No Assessments
When I entered the feld of coaching in 1987 there were very few coaches and none of us were
using assessments. A few years later, in a leadership capacity as Chair of the Credentials
Committee for the International Coach Federation, my committee formulated the Accreditation,
Credentialling and Continuing platform for the profession. Through this involvement our core
assumption was that clients have their own answers and inner wisdom, and can access, assess and
interpret their answers through the guidance of the coaching process.
Confusion has arisen in the public mind because other professions such as Organization
Development, Career Management and Management Consulting do use assessments. For their
purposes assessments are important tools. Since the infux of coaching, many of these professionals
are now referring to themselves as coaches, whereas they continue to do the same thing they were
doing before. The public then assumes incorrectly that coaches are supposed to use assessments.
This inaccurate conclusion is especially prevalent in the business and executive side of coaching.
For example, Organization Development is a profession that has introduced assessments such as
DISC, FIRO-B, MBTI, and 360s. The intention of an assessment is to allow clients to learn more
about self through the gathering of data deemed valid by the research done by test developers.
Accurate interpretations must be done by those trained to do them. Often coaches are brought in to
take the results of the interpretations and create a development plan or coach an existing
development plan.
Whereas coaching and organization development may be complimentary processes and
procedures, they are not the same profession and each profession needs to be honored for the
contributions and value it ofers. Coaching does not include assessments. Organization
Development does.
Coaching in Business Without Using Assessments
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I have experiences with corporations who ask me to do executive coaching and ask which
assessment I use. I explain I do not use assessments as a part of coaching. They can reallocate the
money for something else. My work with clients helps them reveal their own assessments and
interpretations. Most of the time even though the sponsors are surprised, they allow me to
proceed. If feedback from others is needed, such as from staf, colleague peers, or the boss, the
client learns how to ask for (and receive) the feedback directly. There is no need to administer
confdential instruments so that the source of the feedback is secretive. Do we want clandestine
communication or open dialogue in organizations, in our lives?
Riveras Perspective
Coming from a diferent culture and perspective I learned early on that my answers to some of the
questions in established personality assessment tools corresponded to my unique and
unaccounted-for views or interpretations. My cultural background and speaking English as a
second language meant also that how I perceived or interpreted an assessment questionnaire could
lead to assessment results that were on average less representative of who I was and how I
thought. I always remember a dialogue with a colleague following a Myers Briggs assessment of
all the employees in the unit. We were discussing a choice in a particular question where the
choices included the words just and fair. It turns out that even though we had the same preference
we chose words diferently. For this colleague her choice was clearly based on what she knew were
the defnitions of the words. For me the choice was based on my personal experience with these
two words as a minority living in the US.
I use a number of assessment tools and techniques in Organization Development interventions.
These provide some baseline data and spark the dialogue among team members. They help
increase awareness among team members of overt and covert behaviors and processes that impact
the organizational environment and how individuals relate to each other. The focus of these
interventions even when the consultant focuses on individuals as part of the plan, is still the
organization and how can individuals work better together.
I was introduced to coaching while I was fnishing my masters in OD. What appealed to me the
most about coaching was the client-centered approach and the core premise that the client has all
the answers. Coaching as I experienced it engaged the whole person. I was already familiarized
with humanistic psychology and the work of Maslow and Rogers among others. Coaching
appealed to me as the next logical step, engaging the client at a deeper level in a non-therapeutic or
prescriptive client-coach relationship. In this newly defned context I found personality assessment
tools limiting. There is no single or combination of assessment tools yet that can capture the whole
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person and their being. In my practice I fnd that focusing the client early on the results and
categories of personality assessment tools can serve a specifc purpose in an OD intervention. Yet
using an assessment as a parting point in coaching is contrary to the ultimate goal in coaching
practice which is to help the client understand their deeper potential by helping them access their
own best answers. In most cases, in order for a client in a coaching relationship to be able to reach
their own best answers requires the client to let go of categories that limit their self-image and how
they perceive their current environment.
When I use an assessment tool in an intervention I see myself as a consultant. I am gathering data,
analyzing it and sharing it with the client. This is usually followed by a number of
recommendations based on the goals and how the data analysis impacts the client system. On the
other hand, assessments tools in coaching limit my grasp or the whole person through set
categories and what is in my experience the fawed presumption that we can use the same
personality assessment tool on diferent individuals with similarly applicable results. Every time I
am approached by a client or colleague who identifes themselves by their four letter MBTI profle
Im an ENTJ I respond back I have news for youYou are much more than that.
Wouldnt it be simpler if we could capture our whole being in a four letter code or for that matter
any other personality assessment tool profle?
As a coach I understand that part of my role is to provide the client the opportunity to come up
with their own holistic assessment focusing on who they are being and coming to terms with the
depth of their unlimited potential. Coaching at its best opens up a path to self-discovery, awareness
and a desired future.
In summary, coaches Rivera and Belf, representing diferent cultures, educational backgrounds
and professional felds, shared how they came to the same conclusion, i.e., assessments do not
belong in the profession of coaching.
Whereas assessments do ofer caution that the data is not meant to be absolute, people often rely
upon assessments because they have been validated through research, cost a lot of money, and
require expertise to deliver and interpret. Some developers of assessment instruments remind us
that data is intended to identify preferences and leanings and are based in probabilities. Even so,
this is all external data. When we rely exclusively upon external data, it hampers our ability to
access our own internal information.
Do we not have the ability and inner wisdom to interpret who we are? Coaching says we do have
that capability. Coaching challenges clients to access their own information.
One big diference between assessment and coaching is that assessment comes from the premise
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that needs external instruments to access data. Coaching is based on the premise that one can
access that data directly.
As one client put it, I learned to trust I have the knowledge I didnt know I have and I learned
how to access that knowledge I didnt know I could access.
In true coaching form, we leave the reader with questions and challenges that open up
considerations for using, or not using, assessments in coaching. What if all the feedback you have
ever received from assessments was absolutely correct? How do you know which elements of an
assessment feedback are accurate and which are not? To what extent do you need an assessor to
tell you whether an assessment is accurate or not? Bring to mind a time when you received
assessment feedback that you perceived was accurate. What were the implications for your
behavior and choices? Now, bring to mind a time when you received assessment feedback that you
perceived was inaccurate. What were the implications for your behavior and choices? And the
most important one, what might happen if you began to trust your own internal wisdom?
As one client put it, I learned to trust I have knowledge I didnt know I have and I learned how to
access that knowledge that I didnt know I could access.
Our ability to trust and access our inner wisdom through self-discovery is one of the best outcomes
(gifts) a client can obtain from being coached.
Submitted by
Teri-E Belf, M.A., C.A.G.S., M.C.C., is a purposeful and inspiring coaching leader, coach trainer, coach and
author with 20 years in the coaching feld and 18 years HRD and T & D management experience. Her
current passions include serving on the ICF Ethics Committee and developing DVDs to train managers in
coaching competencies. She is the founder of Success Unlimited Network

, L.L.C., an international coaching

community and Director of an ICF-accredited coach training program.
Teri-E Belf
2016 Lakebreeze Way
Reston, VA 20191-4021
P: 703-716-8374
F: 703-264-7867
coach@belf.org
Rafael Rivera, B.A., M.S.O.D., is an Organizational Specialist at the National Education Association in
Washington DC with 21 years of experience in training and education, organization development,
community and membership organizing.
Rafael Rivera
P O Box 17074
Arlington, VA 22216
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P: 202-494-6335
F: 888-217-7940
rorivera@att.net
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