Yes / No / Maybe Assessment

A 38-year-old marketing director at a retail brand has been in coaching for six weeks. She articulates clearly, agrees readily, and generates action items fluently at the end of every session. The follow-through rate is near zero. She doesn't have an explanation. She's not resistant — she genuinely intends to do what she says. The Yes/No/Maybe format gives the coach a structured way to calibrate commitment before anything gets written on the action list: statements go on the sheet first, and the MAYBEs tell you where the real uncertainty is.

Don't introduce this as a follow-through tool — that framing will make her defensive. Instead: 'Before we close today with action items, I want to try something different. Instead of listing what you're going to do, I want to put seven statements on this sheet — each one a potential commitment — and have you respond with Yes, No, or Maybe. The MAYBEs are the interesting ones. Those are where I want us to spend our time before anything becomes an official commitment.' Build the seven statements together based on what's come up in the session.

Watch for MAYBE responses to cluster around commitments that require initiating something uncomfortable — a difficult conversation, a request to a senior colleague, a behavioral change that affects others. If all her MAYBEs share that character, the barrier isn't capacity or time — it's initiation of interpersonal difficulty. Also watch for YES responses that she gives quickly and confidently for items that have appeared on previous action lists without completion. A fast YES from a client with a track record of non-follow-through is worth probing: 'You said yes quickly. What would actually make this happen?'

Start with the MAYBEs. 'You marked three things as Maybe. Read them back to me.' Then pick the one with the most energy — either because it matters most or because her hesitation was most visible. 'What's the Maybe about? What would need to be different for this to be a Yes?' Don't convert MAYBEs to YESes in the debrief — leave them as MAYBEs if that's honest. The goal is accurate calibration, not full commitment. Close by revisiting the YES column: 'For each Yes — when exactly are you going to do this, and what would make it not happen?'

A 33-year-old engineering manager is seven months into her first people-management role. She received her first 360 feedback last month — the ratings were positive overall, with consistent comments about delegation and feedback frequency being areas for development. She came to coaching to work on both. The Yes/No/Maybe format gives her a structured tool for auditing her own leadership behaviors at the start of a session: the coach builds the seven statements around specific leadership behaviors, and the MAYBE cluster identifies what she's not yet doing consistently.

Frame this as a quick diagnostic that replaces the long check-in. 'Instead of a general how-has-your-week-been opener, I want to try a format where we put seven specific leadership behaviors on the table and you tell me where you stand on each. Yes means you're doing it consistently. No means you're not doing it. Maybe means sometimes — or you're not sure.' Have her co-design the seven statements based on the 360 themes so she's not rating abstract behaviors but specific ones she recognizes from real feedback.

Watch for MAYBEs to cluster around feedback frequency and delegation — the two areas her 360 identified. If she marks these as MAYBE rather than NO, she's partially aware of the gap but hasn't fully owned it. Also watch for the statements she marks YES with high certainty: those are her anchors — the behaviors she's most confident about. The debrief can use those as evidence that she's capable of consistency and apply that insight to the MAYBE items.

Start with the MAYBE cluster. 'You marked [X], [Y], and [Z] as Maybe. These overlap directly with what your 360 flagged. What does it mean that these are Maybes rather than Yeses?' Then: 'What would consistent look like for [specific MAYBE item]? How often, with whom, in what form?' Specificity converts a vague intention into a testable behavior. Close with a commitment check: 'Pick one of the Maybes. What would it take for that to be a Yes by our next session — specifically, not generally?'

A 55-year-old CFO at a healthcare organization is in the final two sessions of a six-month coaching engagement. He came in to work on executive presence and delegation. He's made real progress on both. The end-of-engagement challenge is: have the behavior changes become reliable, or are they still effortful and conditional? The Yes/No/Maybe format gives him and his coach a structured way to audit which behaviors are now habits, which are still inconsistent, and which were never fully adopted.

Frame this as a completion instrument, not a performance review. 'As we head into our final sessions, I want to use a simple format to take stock of where the behaviors we've been working on actually stand — not aspirationally, but honestly. Yes means this is now how you operate. No means it didn't take root in this engagement. Maybe means it's still conditional or situational. All three answers are useful.' The framing should feel like a colleague debriefing a project, not a teacher grading a student.

Watch for the YES responses on the behaviors he finds easiest and the MAYBE responses on the ones that require the most sustained vulnerability — typically giving critical feedback upward, setting limits on his own availability, or naming team-level problems directly. Also watch for the coaching goal that drops to NO: if a behavior he worked on for six months is still a No, the engagement should name that clearly rather than paper over it with qualified language about 'continued development.'

Start with the YES responses. 'Tell me what looks different about how you operate in [Yes item] compared to when we started.' That establishes baseline change before examining what didn't move. Then: 'You marked [MAYBE item] as Maybe. Six months ago, what would you have marked it?' If it was a No six months ago and is now a Maybe, that's movement worth naming. If it was a stated goal and is still a Maybe, that's worth naming honestly too. Close with: 'If you were starting a new coaching engagement tomorrow — not continuing this one, starting fresh — what would you bring into it?'