WHY DR. TANA M. SESSION, JD
She Has Sat In Your Chair.
Most executive coaches have been coached. Very few have been the person deciding whether to fund it.
Dr. Tana M. Session, JD spent 30+ years in human resources, including more than ten leading the function at organizations including EY and Coca-Cola. She has run the talent review where a leader's name came up. She has built the succession slate, made the case to a board, and handled the exits for the times development did not work. She has also been the executive on the other side of the table hiring the coach, which means she knows exactly what you are risking and what you will need to show for it.
She holds an ICF-approved Executive Performance Coaching certification alongside the PHR, GPHR, and SHRM-SCP, the senior credential in her field.
30+
years in human resources.
10+
of them leading the function, at organizations including EY and Coca-Cola.
200+
organizations served since founding TMS.
50+
engagements with leadership coaching in scope.
Who it is built for:
Senior leaders whose technical capability is not in question and whose impact on the people around them is. Managing directors, VPs, division heads, and functional executives, usually sponsored by a CEO or a chief people officer.
When it works:
When the executive wants it, when a sponsor stays involved, and when there is a live leadership challenge to practice on. All three are conditions, not preferences. The first conversation checks for them before anything is signed.
When it does not:
When coaching is being used to document a decision already made. If the honest answer is that the organization has outgrown the person, we will say so at the start rather than take the engagement.
THE FRAMEWORK
One Sequence. Shaped To The Leader.
Engagements can run three, six, or twelve months. What stays constant is the order of the work, because that is what makes change hold after the last session.
SET UP
Before anything is signed
Two conversations, then a contract.
A first meeting with the sponsor to agree what the engagement is for and what would count as success. Then a separate conversation with the executive to confirm mutual fit, because coaching someone who does not want it is a waste of everyone's budget. Length, cadence, and assessment approach are set here, against the leader in front of us rather than a template.
Key Deliverable: A written scope agreed with the sponsor, and a separate coaching agreement signed by the executive covering how the work will run.
SPONSOR AND EXECUTIVE
DISCOVERY
Opening weeks
Assessment, chosen to fit.
Most engagements open with 360-degree feedback: eight to ten interviews with peers, direct reports, and senior managers. The executive proposes the list and the sponsor reviews it and adds names, which matters more than it sounds, because people nominate the colleagues who like them.
Where a different lens serves the work better, we use one. DiSC, implicit bias assessments, and personality instruments including Myers-Briggs, Big Five, and Predictive Index are all in regular use, and if your organization already runs an instrument we will work inside it rather than add another. Coaching begins immediately rather than waiting for results, so the early sessions run on live material.
Key Deliverable: An aggregated, anonymized assessment summary, walked through live with the executive rather than emailed, plus a high-level overview for the sponsor.
SPONSOR AND EXECUTIVE
DEVELOPMENT
The working middle
Few priorities, written down, made countable.
Findings become a written plan: two to four working priorities consolidated from however many themes the assessment raised, and no more than three visible behavioral commitments at a time. Breadth is the enemy of durability.
Every priority carries success criteria written so that someone at a distance from the executive could confirm them. "Two proactive outreach conversations per week," not "build more relationships." The findings are diagnostic, not evaluative. They name patterns; they do not score performance.
Key Deliverable: A written executive development plan with priorities, observable success criteria, and a guide for each session, plus the accountability workbook that runs alongside it.
EXECUTIVE
VALIDATION
Toward the close
Ask the same people again.
A follow-up round with contributors from the first, weighted toward the people who had the most difficult experience of the executive's leadership. Same questions as the opening round, so the answers are directly comparable.
This is the external test, and it is the reason the work is credible. If change is only visible to the people closest to the executive, it has not happened yet.
Key Deliverable: A follow-up assessment summary comparing results against the baseline, theme by theme, with a high-level view of the trajectory for the sponsor.
EXECUTIVE, WITH AN OVERVIEW TO THE SPONSOR
CLOSE-OUT
Final session, and after
Built to keep running without a coach.
The final session is fixed regardless of engagement length: evidence review, the mechanics of how old habits return and what the early warning signs look like, a one-page architecture the executive owns, and a plan agreed in advance for the first time pressure spikes again.
The sponsor receives a final report covering what changed, what the follow-up assessment showed, and what to keep working on. The executive is told at the outset that this report goes to the sponsor, so nothing in it is a surprise.
Key Deliverable: A final engagement report for the sponsor, and for the executive a one-page durability architecture plus the accountability workbook, handed over live and theirs to keep.
SPONSOR AND EXECUTIVE
DELIVERABLES
Two Audiences, Two Sets Of Documents.
Coaching fails when the executive suspects everything they say is being reported upward, and it fails when the sponsor has no idea whether it is working. The document set is built so both can be true at once.
The Executive Receives:
An assessment summary, aggregated and anonymized, walked through live.
A written development plan with priorities, session guides, and observable success criteria.
An accountability workbook they own and keep.
A curated resource library, phased to their priorities, with items marked to carry forward past the engagement.
A follow-up assessment summary comparing results against the baseline, theme by theme.
.A one-page durability architecture and a plan for the next pressure spike
Two 15-minute calls a month between sessions, for the things that will not wait
The Sponsor Receives:
A high-level overview of the assessment findings and the development plan.
Monthly progress updates, including candid notes on engagement and participation.
A final engagement report: what changed, what the follow-up evidence showed, and what to keep working on.
An optional close-out conversation.
Full contributor anonymity throughout. Sponsors receive themes and trajectory, never attributed quotes.
BETWEEN SESSIONS
Structure Beats Willpower.
Most of the work happens between sessions, unsupervised, which is exactly where most coaching fails. Four tools carry it, and they live in one file the executive keeps.
Commitment tracker.
Every commitment logged the moment it is made, with who it is owed to and when it is due. One capture point: if it is not in the tracker, it does not exist. A standing Friday review closes every open item as done, scheduled, or renegotiated. Nothing stays vague.
Daily questions.
One question per priority, each beginning "Did I do my best to..." and scored one to ten on effort rather than outcome. A low score is data, not failure. The trend across a fortnight is the point, never a single evening.
Practice log.
A few honest minutes after a demanding interaction, while it is fresh: what the situation was, what you noticed first, how you responded, what you would do differently, and whether anything needed following up. Written to learn from, not to keep score.
Feedback allies.
Two or three colleagues recruited to tell the executive the truth in real time, at least one from outside their inner circle. Their read becomes part of the evidence, alongside what the coach gathers independently.
The engagement ends. The file does not.
All four tools live in one workbook, and at the final session it is handed over in full: the tracker with its history, the daily questions, the practice log, the resource library with the reading marked to carry forward, and a start-here page for running it alone.
The point of the last session is not to close the file. It is to make sure the executive can keep it open. Everything in it was built to be used by someone with no coach in the room, which is the state they will be in for most of their career.
No colleague is ever named in the workbook. Needs are written as managing up, managing down, or managing across, so a development tool never becomes a document someone else could be hurt by.
PAST PERFORMANCE
The Same Buyers Come Back.
Coaching outcomes are the hardest results in professional services to show in public, because the evidence belongs to the person who was coached and it stays with them. What can be published is who keeps buying.
4
engagements, one buyer
Across two companies, from 2020 to 2026.
2
repeat engagements
Same client, three years apart.
50+
engagements including coaching
Across corporate, nonprofit, and public sector.
2
assessment rounds
Opening and closing, so change is measured, not asserted.
Coaching has been delivered for leaders at Ogilvy, Wasserman, Laundry Service, Lakeshore Learning, and Las Trampas School. Managers at NASA have been coached on holding difficult conversations, and division heads at a major utility on leading through organizational change. The work has covered executive presence, managing at a new altitude, leading through a transition, and rebuilding a team's confidence in its leader.
What gets reported, including when it is partial.
Follow-up findings are reported as they come back. Change often lands first with the people an executive works with most closely and takes longer to reach the people at a distance, and where that is what the evidence shows, that is what the report says.
A clean success story is easy to write and no experienced buyer believes it. The standard here is that the closing assessment is rigorous enough to produce a partial result, and honest enough to report one.
GROUP COACHING
Cohorts, Not Just Individuals.
Where several leaders need the same development at the same time, the work runs as a cohort: shared sessions on a common framework, individual accountability, and the peer pressure that comes from doing it alongside people who will notice if you stop.
A framework with a decade behind it.
Cohorts run on Stop Being the Best Kept Secret®, Dr. Tana M. Session, JD's registered five-part framework for the capable professional whose contribution is not being seen at the level it should be. It was built and tested in the field, delivered as full-day master classes in cities including New York and Atlanta before moving to virtual cohorts, and Dr. Tana M. Session, JD, has trained and certified other coaches to deliver it.
In a corporate cohort the five parts run as visibility and executive presence, speaking with candor and authority, recovering from setback without shrinking, knowing and negotiating your worth, and building a trajectory on purpose rather than by default.
Where organizations use it.
High-potential and emerging leader cohorts.
Women in leadership and advancement programmes.
ERG and affinity network leadership tracks.
.Bench strength ahead of a succession cycle
Post-reorganization, where a layer of leaders needs to step up at once.
Comfort is the enemy of success.
Dr. Tana M. Session, JD, has said it for a decade, to rooms of a hundred and to one executive at a time. It is the same principle underneath both: growth happens where the work is uncomfortable and someone is paying attention.
QUESTIONS
Before You Sponsor Someone.
How long is an engagement?
Three, six, or twelve months, decided with you at the start. Sessions usually run one hour, most often bi-weekly, and the cadence can step down to monthly where that suits the executive better. Longer engagements are not simply more sessions: they allow a second full assessment cycle and give a behavior change time to survive a real stress test rather than a calm quarter.
Which assessment do you use?
Whichever one fits the question. Most engagements open with 360-degree feedback because it surfaces how a leader is actually experienced, and where a different lens serves better we use DiSC, Harvard Implicit Bias Test, or a personality instrument such as Myers-Briggs, Big Five, or Predictive Index. If your organization already runs an instrument, we will work inside it rather than add another for the sake of it.
Who does the work?
Dr. Tana M. Session, JD leads every engagement, runs every coaching session personally, and authors every report. Assessment interviews are conducted by Dr. Session and the TMS team, which is how eight to ten contributor conversations fit inside a few weeks without slowing the coaching down.
What does my executive tell you that I will never see?
Everything said inside a coaching session. What you receive is a high-level view of the assessment findings, the development plan, monthly progress updates, and a final report on what changed. Contributors are anonymous to everyone including you: you get themes and trajectory, never attributed quotes. The executive is told at the outset exactly what you will see, so nothing in the final report surprises them.
How do you know whether it worked?
The same people who described the situation at the start are asked again at the end, using the same questions, weighted toward the ones who were most critical the first time. Alongside that, the executive tracks countable weekly commitments and the coach gathers independent signals from feedback allies and the organization. Success criteria are written so someone at a distance from the executive could confirm them.
What if coaching is not the right answer?
We will tell you before you sign. Sometimes an executive is being asked to hold a scope no single person could hold, and what looks like a performance problem is a structural one. That is a consulting conversation, not a coaching engagement, and pretending otherwise wastes your money.
Does the executive have to want it?
Yes, and there is a separate conversation with them before anything is signed to establish that. Their agreement also covers participation, because a sponsor funding this deserves to know if engagement drops off.
Can you coach more than one leader at a time?
Yes. Engagements frequently run for two executives in parallel, and where they sit in the same reporting line the design can include a cross-assessment, with each interviewed about the other. How a leader describes a peer is itself diagnostic.
What happens after the engagement ends?
The executive keeps the accountability workbook and a one-page architecture designed to run without a coach. The final session sets a plan in advance for the first time pressure spikes again, on the assumption that it will. Reading and resources marked to carry forward extend well past the last session.
CONTACT
Tell Us Who You Are Sponsoring, And Why.
The leader, the role, and what has already been tried. The first conversation is a diagnostic, not a pitch, and it may end with us telling you coaching is not the answer.
30+ years
in human resources, including more than ten leading the function at organizations including EY and Coca-Cola.
ICF-approved
Executive Performance Coaching certification, alongside the PHR, GPHR, and SHRM-SCP.
3, 6, or 12 months
with assessment at the start and again at the close, so change is measured rather than asserted.