The exhausted colleague
What a Coaching Scenario is
Not quiz style. This is judgement practice — you're put inside a real situation from human-services work and asked what you would actually do. It draws on the knowledge you use on the job, not the kind you can look up.
Every choice changes what happens next, and every choice gets a coaching beat straight after it: what drew you toward that option, and how it played out. What's held back is the verdict on your path, so you stay with what you'd genuinely do rather than working out what you're supposed to say.
- 4 decisions
- Each one shaped by the one before it. No two paths through are the same.
- Coaching as you go
- A beat after every decision, naming the pull behind your choice and where it led.
- A full debrief
- Your whole path replayed at the end, with the reasoning behind each decision you made.
- Evidence you can keep
- A completed scenario is recorded in your PracticeLab and appears in your downloadable ProofKit.
Scenarios are made to be talked about. Most people finish one still turning it over, which makes them a ready-made prompt for supervision, a team meeting or a conversation with a colleague — everyone walks the same situation, and comparing where you each landed is often where the real learning happens.
This one ends with
Next time you notice a colleague showing signs of overload, name what you're observing early — before it reaches the client.
The situation
You work as a client services practitioner at a family violence organisation. Your colleague Anna has been there for six years and is one of the most experienced people on the team. This week she has responded to four overnight crisis callouts on top of her regular caseload. Everyone on the team knows she has been carrying an enormous load, and there is a quiet, collective respect for how much she gives.
This afternoon your team sits down for a routine debrief after a difficult group session. Midway through, a client in the adjacent waiting room calls out to ask how long the wait will be. Anna, who is closest to the door, turns and says flatly, "We'll get to you when we get to you." The client — a woman who has only just started engaging with your service — goes quiet. You see her pull her jacket tighter. A few minutes later, when a newer colleague asks Anna a clarifying question about the case notes, Anna cuts her off: "I already explained that. Just read the file."
The newer colleague looks down at the table. The debrief limps on and ends early. Afterwards, people drift away in ones and twos without the usual check-in conversations. The team lead, Freya, is in a back-to-back management meeting and hasn't seen any of this.
You are not Anna's supervisor. But you were in that room. You saw what happened with the client. You saw the newer colleague's face. And you know that if Anna keeps going like this — or if no one says anything — the harm will compound.
What you're practising
Before you start, notice
Real-world decisions in scenarios like this are shaped as much by feeling as by reasoning. People often notice one of these pulls — naming what you feel before you decide is half the skill.
- Loyalty to a high performer — the pull to protect someone who usually holds everything together
- Sympathy — the feeling that naming this to Anna or Freya would feel like punishing someone for being stretched too thin
- Fear of difficult conversations — the worry that raising it will damage your relationship with Anna or make things awkward in the team
- The belief that self-care is personal — the sense that what Anna does with her own wellbeing is her own business, and it's not your place to step in
Policies this draws on
- Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (NZ) / Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (AU)
- Your organisation's staff wellbeing and support policy
- Your organisation's code of conduct
- Your organisation's critical incident and debriefing policy
- Your own organisation's policies take precedence — check them where they apply.
Heads up — coaching scenarios work differently. You'll make a sequence of decisions as the situation unfolds, and after each one you'll get a coaching beat: what drew you toward that choice, and how it played out. The one thing held back is the verdict on the path you took — that lands in the debrief at the end, with your whole walk replayed alongside it.
New to Good Practice Hub? Coaching Scenarios come with PracticeLab Pro, or browse the practice library to see what else is there.
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