The Sponsor Who Wants More Than Was Agreed

The examiner is testing whether you separate who pays from who is the client, and whether you treat agreements as a living process rather than a document signed once.

• Identify the live agreement issue. There was an explicit agreement about what Marcus would receive (attendance plus general status). A request for 'themes and progress' is a change to that agreement, not an administrative detail. Changing an agreement requires the people affected - Priya first.
• Do not comply silently. Complying would breach the confidentiality terms Priya relied on and would make the coach an extension of the performance-review process. It also teaches Priya that the room is not safe.
• Do not simply refuse either. Refusing without dialogue treats the sponsor as an adversary and ignores a legitimate business need (Marcus wants to support a new supervisor). A coach can usually meet the sponsor's underlying need - reassurance - without disclosing content: for example, confirming engagement, attendance, and that Priya has identified focus areas she chooses to share herself.
• Surface the pressure. The invoice condition is leverage. Payment terms do not purchase access to coaching content; Dana should say so plainly and separately from the confidentiality conversation.
• Sequence: talk with Marcus to understand purpose and reset the boundary, then tell Priya the request was made and what Dana proposed, then re-contract with Priya about what she wants shared, if anything, and with whom.

A defensible answer names the sequence and the reasoning, not just 'maintain confidentiality.'

The pull here is to soften things - 'He just checked in' - to avoid unsettling Priya. That instinct usually damages the alliance more than the truth does.

• Answer honestly and specifically. Yes, Marcus emailed, here is what he asked for, and here is what Dana has and has not agreed to. Vagueness reads as collusion, and clients reliably sense it.
• Then hand the decision back. What, if anything, does Priya want communicated before the review? Does she want to speak to Marcus herself? Silence is a legitimate choice.
• Name the impact. 'I want to check how it lands that he asked, and that I'm telling you.' Trust is built from predictability, not from the absence of awkward facts.
• Why this matters more than the content: if Dana conceals the request and Priya later learns of it, every previous reassurance becomes suspect, and Priya will edit what she brings to sessions. The cost of the truth is one uncomfortable conversation; the cost of concealment is the coaching itself.

A strong answer also notes that Dana should not promise what she cannot control - she cannot guarantee Marcus will never ask again.

This looks logistical and is actually a contracting question about dose, purpose, and whose agenda drives the work.

• Whose need is the timeline serving? A 90-day review is a real deadline, but the coaching goal was Priya's, not the review's. Ask Priya whether accelerating serves her.
• What is lost by compression? Sessions spaced closely leave little room for in-the-field experimentation, which is where most behaviour change happens. Two sessions in two weeks may produce insight and no practice, or may be useful as a focused sprint before a known event. Either can be right - but the coach should say which one she thinks she is agreeing to.
• Agree, don't comply. Dana can offer options (keep the spacing; run one longer session plus one follow-up; add a written reflection between) and let Priya choose.
• Keep the sponsor's request out of the room as an instruction. Present it as information to Priya, not as a requirement.
• Red flag to name in an exam answer: if Dana reshapes the engagement solely because the invoice depends on it, the client's agenda has been displaced by the payer's - a competency 3 failure even if no confidentiality line is crossed.