The method
The Wolcott Arc
Read the Room, Set the Contract, Change the Behaviour, Hand It Back. Four movements, four artifacts you keep, and an end date that exists on purpose.
The whole shape
What happens, in the order it happens
Week 0
Chemistry call
30 minutes, free, no sponsor in the room. Up to three coaches. You choose, not us.
Week 1
Three-way contracting
Coachee, sponsor and coach agree the shifts and the reporting line.
Weeks 2–4
Stakeholder Read
8–12 confidential interviews, themed and de-identified, read back to you first.
Months 1–6
Working sessions
Fortnightly, 90 minutes, in the North Loop or on video. Between-session contact included.
Month 3–4
Mid-point review
A three-way session against the Working Contract. Adjust or stop — both are allowed.
Month 6–9
Impact readout & close
A closing stakeholder pulse, a sponsor readout, and a plan you keep running alone.
Artifact
Stakeholder Read
8–12 interviews, themed, de-identified
Artifact
Working Contract
Three-way, one page, signed
Artifact
Behaviour Ledger
2–3 observable shifts, reviewed every session
Artifact
Impact Readout
Mid-point + close, themes only
01Read the Room
Eight to twelve confidential conversations with the people around the seat.
Before the first working session we interview the people whose experience of you is the thing that has to change — your manager, two or three peers, three or four of your team, sometimes a board member or a customer. Thirty minutes each. We theme what we hear and de-identify it. You get the read; nobody gets the transcript.
Stakeholder Read — 8–12 interviews, themed, de-identified
02Set the Contract
One page, three signatures, no ambiguity about who sees what.
You, your sponsor and your coach agree the two or three shifts the engagement is actually for, how progress gets reported, and where the confidentiality line sits. It takes forty-five minutes and it prevents every awkward conversation that would otherwise arrive in month four.
Working Contract — Three-way, one page, signed
03Change the Behaviour
Fortnightly working sessions against two or three observable shifts.
Not insight for its own sake. Each session ends with something you will do differently before the next one, and starts with what happened when you tried. The Behaviour Ledger is open on the table every time; if a shift is not moving after eight weeks we change the approach, not the ledger.
Behaviour Ledger — 2–3 observable shifts, reviewed every session
04Hand It Back
A mid-point and a closing readout — themes only, and then we leave.
At the halfway mark and at the close, your sponsor gets a readout: what was worked on, what stakeholders now notice, what is still open, what you own from here. Themes, never transcripts. Good coaching ends. We would rather you re-engage in two years for the next seat than keep a standing invoice.
Impact Readout — Mid-point + close, themes only
What we will not do
Some things coaching cannot fix, and we say so early
- A performance process wearing a coaching costume. If the decision is made, coaching is not the honest instrument
- A team whose real problem is one member the chief executive will not move
- A founder the board has already decided about
- A structural problem — capacity, strategy, an unfunded plan — described as a leadership problem
About one enquiry in five ends here. It costs us work and saves everyone a great deal more.
And what we insist on
Four conditions of an engagement
- The coachee chooses their coach, from at least two chemistry calls
- The sponsor sits in the three-way contracting session
- The confidentiality boundary is stated out loud before anything is signed
- There is a mid-point at which stopping is a live option, put on the table by us
Chemistry call
Start with a conversation, not a contract
Thirty minutes with up to three coaches, free, with no sponsor in the room. You choose who you work with — we never assign.