> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.mindovermoney.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Steal My Prompt Vol. 52: The Direct Report Coaching Plan - URL: https://www.mindovermoney.ai/prompt-library/ai-prompt-to-write-an-employee-development-plan/ - Published: 2026-09-22T11:00:23.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-22T11:00:22.000Z - Description: Most employee development plans fail because they are written before anyone names what is in the way. This AI prompt interviews the manager, separates fit, skills, and environment, then builds a 30-day observation plan and a 60-day coaching plan around the real cause. - Author: Santosh Savel - Tags: #prompt-library Every manager wants to see their team grow and develop over the course of the year. What makes that hard is that growth stalls for different reasons in different people, and the reasons look identical from the outside. By the time most of us sit down to write a development plan, we are already designing it around a guess. The instinct is to build the plan. The move that works is to name what is in the way first. Run this prompt before you write a plan for anyone on your team. It interviews you one question at a time, and each answer decides the next one, the way a good mentor narrows in. It separates the three things that stall growth, fit, skills, and environment. Then it builds a 30-day observation plan and a 60-day coaching plan around the one it names. The pattern is Diagnose Before You Design, and you will use it on far more than people. ****Explore AI Out Loud Podcast** Find practical ways to use AI in your work and everyday life. New episodes every other Tuesday. [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@exploreAIoutloud?ref=mindovermoney.ai) [Listen on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/0348nx4ylmWesSj02ECRjY?ref=mindovermoney.ai) [Listen on Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explore-ai-out-loud/id6812370441?ref=mindovermoney.ai) **What You Can Use This For** - A strong performer who has plateaued, where you cannot name what would unlock the next level - Someone close on a skill that would widen their range, and you cannot tell whether it needs reps or coaching - A new hire six months in, where it is still unclear whether it is ramp or fit - Someone whose work changed after a reorg, a new system, or a new leader in their orbit - A clinical operations or pharmacy supervisor choosing between coaching and a workload change - Preparing for the development conversation in your next one on one **How to Use It** 1. Open Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, or Gemini. This works on free tiers and needs no paid feature. 2. Turn on the reasoning option. Extended thinking in Claude, Think Deeper in Copilot, the reasoning model in ChatGPT, or Deep Think in Gemini. It catches more on the first read. 3. Paste the prompt and fill in the three bracketed fields. If you have never written down what good looks like in this role,[ Vol. 46, The Hiring Manager's Interview](https://www.mindovermoney.ai/prompt-library/ai-prompt-to-build-a-hiring-scorecard/) builds that first. 4. Describe what you have seen as behaviors rather than adjectives. "Has run our last three vendor reviews cleanly and has never once pushed back on a scope change" gives the model something to work with. "Not strategic enough yet" does not. 5. Answer the questions one at a time and resist arguing for your own theory. If you are short on time, type skip and it will proceed with clearly labeled assumptions. **Pro tip.** After your next one on one, run it again with what you learned added to the observation field. The second read is almost always sharper, because by then you are working from evidence instead of impression. **The Prompt** *I am building a development plan for someone on my team.* *Most development plans fail the same way. They get designed before anyone names what is actually in the way, so the plan treats a symptom and the person stalls again a quarter later.* *Your job is to prevent that. Do not help me build any part of the plan until you have separated the cause from the symptom. The plan is only good if it names one cause, carries the evidence from my answers that supports it, and states what would prove it wrong.* *My role, and how long I have managed this person: \[YOUR ROLE AND HOW LONG YOU HAVE MANAGED THEM\]* *What this person was hired to do: \[THE ROLE AND WHAT GOOD LOOKS LIKE IN IT\]* *What I have observed recently: \[WHAT YOU HAVE SEEN, IN BEHAVIORS RATHER THAN ADJECTIVES\]* *Work in two phases. Do not produce any part of the plan until Phase 1 is finished.* *Phase 1, diagnosis. Interview me. Ask one question at a time, wait for my answer, and let each answer decide what you ask next. Ask no more than four questions, and ask only what you cannot reasonably infer from what I have already given you. Treat every adjective in my description as a claim you need behavioral evidence for, and measure what I am seeing against what good looks like in this role as I described it. Use how long I have managed this person to judge how much of my read is baseline and how much is recent change. If I type skip, stop asking and continue using assumptions you label clearly.* *Your questions exist to separate three causes that look identical from the outside. Fit, where the work does not match how this person is built. Skills, where the ability is learnable and not yet built. Environment, where something around them is producing the result.* *Then give me your read. Name the most likely cause, your confidence in it, the specific things I told you that support it, and the one piece of evidence that would change your mind. If two causes are live, say so rather than forcing one.* *Phase 2, design. Build the plan around the cause you named, not around all three. Write it as development. Nothing in the plan should read as a warning.* *Produce a three-column table covering the next 30 days. Column one, WHAT I WILL OBSERVE, written as behaviors I can actually see. Column two, WHAT WOULD CONFIRM THE DIAGNOSIS. Column three, WHAT WOULD DISPROVE IT.* *Then a 60-day coaching plan with three rows. The move I make. The support this person needs from me for that move to work. What success looks like described in their terms rather than mine.* *Then the gate. One sentence naming what has to be true at day 30 for the 60-day plan to proceed, and one sentence naming what I should do instead if it is not.* *Close with the single question I should ask this person in our next one on one.* **Transparency and Notes** - Built and tested in Claude. Works in ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Gemini on free tiers. - Model agnostic. The reasoning option sharpens the diagnosis but is not required. - Pairs well with[ Vol. 33, The Self-Performance Review](https://www.mindovermoney.ai/prompt-library/ai-prompt-to-write-self-performance-review/). Send that one to the person before the conversation so both of you arrive with evidence. - Keep names, employee identifiers, and HR records out of the chat. Describe the person by role and by what you have observed. - This is a coaching tool, not an HR document. Anything headed for a formal file belongs with your HR partner. - The pattern is Diagnose Before You Design. Point it at a stalled project, a process that keeps breaking, or a metric that moved for reasons nobody has named. ## Make AI useful in your everyday work. Get Neural Gains Weekly in your inbox, with practical AI explanations, prompts, and lessons from building. Subscribe for free Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. One email every Tuesday, alternating NGW issues and podcast takeaways.