It’s easy to relegate “people development” to a low priority. After all, operating the business and creating value are urgent needs that demand our attention. There’s rarely a deadline around developing people… until it’s too late.
1. New hire into the company
Issue
Not feeling like this culture matched her values; how to figure out the right spot for her where her values and the company’s could align.
What we did
- Identified her own values and aspirations.
- Looked at whether those could be met within a different function in the company; supported her to make the move.
- Acknowledged how she could meet her aspirations through external activities, and how taking part in those would give her the energy to be at her best in work.
Outcome
- She found her niche in the company, serving societal needs, and felt motivated to create processes that underpinned the success of her function.
- By leaving work on time for her extra-curricular activities, she modelled boundary-setting for her team members and boss, who started to adopt similar strategies of self-care.
- She remained with the company for 9 years, saving the company re-recruitment/training costs of approx. £250,000, increasing the reputation of the organisation as a place that changed the way the world works and lives and increasing the skills and engagement of employees on the programme.
2. New Managing Director
Issue
Which behaviours to continue that had made him successful in the past, what to jettison and what to adapt, in order to be a successful MD
What we did
- Identified people who could give him direction about what would make him a successful Managing Director, compared to a successful Senior Manager
- Looked at the balance of value creator, business operator and people developer, and where he needed to focus more of his time at this new level
- Found ways to meet all of the new operational responsibilities, without taking away from his client relationships and sales successes
Outcome
He closed a £1 million sale. As a result, he was tapped on the shoulder to take on a new role of broader scope and scale. He was well-respected in the business at this new MD level. People asked to work for him, owing to his attention to their development needs.
3. Senior Manager up for promotion to Managing Director
Issue
- Approaching a critical and challenging promotion point in the consulting career ladder from Senior Manager to Managing Director, in the Strategy Practice of a Big 4 Consulting Firm; which requires candidates to demonstrate their leadership potential, operational rigour, and sales capability. This process takes place on a global scale and is highly competitive.
What we did
- Identified the critical success factors for promotion, alongside a stakeholder map for her campaign.
- Focused our coaching on key metrics including sales pipeline and sales delivered, leadership impact and followership, mentoring others, offering development; and ensured that she used her time effectively, especially as she is a part-time worker
- Looked at creative ways to tell her story through visual images, whilst still demonstrating the essential business results
- Moved her mindset from being a candidate to being a Managing Director in everything she did
Outcome
- She was successfully promoted to Managing Director, having demonstrated a good mix of people development, value creation and business operations outcomes, and is well-regarded in her part of the business.
- This translated into a personal financial impact of doubling her earning potential over a 5 year period.
- For the business, her promotion from Senior Manager to Managing Director has meant that she is now bringing in five times the sales numbers, leveraging teams of 10+.
- Following a strong first two years as a Managing Director, she has now gone on to lead her practice of thirty people and is up for promotion to the next level of Managing Director.
- She is a role model for other women in business, encouraging women and men returners to find their right balance. She champions the working parent diversity initiative within the firm and has just been nominated for the Timewise Power Part Time Awards.
Testimonial
“Clare made a great difference to my own personal development. She actively listened, championed, encouraged, challenged, questioned, celebrated me along my path to becoming a PCC coach, and also to being promoted into a leadership role at Accenture.
I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Clare to you and your organisation on an individual level and as a professional coach who truly understands how to achieve impact on an industrial scale. You will not regret working with Clare, you’ll wonder how you managed before”. – Diana Barea, Managing Director, Accenture.
4. Country Managing Director moving to a regional Managing Director role
Issue
How to make a good impression on all his stakeholders in his first 90 days; how to help his family to embrace the move to a new country.
What we did
- Identified who the stakeholders were, and created a plan to establish their expectations. Identified his own needs and expectations too
- Prioritised actions to meet the needs of all stakeholders, including himself and his family
- Worked on the plan, and identified obstacles that needed tackling along the way
Outcome
He was able to overcome his own self-doubts to bring operational efficiencies to the region, while also enabling his leadership team to become more self-sufficient. In addition, he uncovered what kind of work he personally wanted to lead, and spear-headed an innovative community programme in partnership with a university. He also supported his family to enjoy their new surroundings. Two years later, he returned to the UK to a high profile strategic role, having proved himself more than capable.
Testimonial
“I was looking for someone that would challenge me and help me through a transition period in moving from a country to a regional leadership role. I was struggling with moving to a role that was an order of magnitude more complex in terms of volume of clients, people to lead and issues to be resolved. We worked through these issues and then through some issues around my motivation in the role, work-life balance, career futures, etc.
Clare is a very effective coach who listens, reflects, pushes you to the most relevant issues to deal with, is logical and is able to track your challenges through to resolution. Clare is experienced in working with senior people in this capacity. We covered a broad spectrum of issues around the role, personal impacts of being an ex-pat, dealing with some difficult relationships, etc. Clare was able to navigate the different coaching issues as they arose. What was great was that I didn’t feel that there was a set routine as she experimented with what would fit with my style. I am a tricky client as I like to look at the positives steering away from the tough issues and Clare was able to pull me towards the difficult areas to face them, take a look at them, and build a set of actions around addressing them.” Managing Director, Accenture. Asked to remain anonymous.
5. Career Change
Testimonial
Before working with Clare, I had just finished a short career break from over 10 years’ experience working in the corporate IT world. I was keen to embark on something completely new and mission focussed.
Clare was brilliant in coaching me through a brand-new career change (founding a mental health start-up), a shift in mindset from minimal risk taking to seizing opportunities at hand and being able to put boundaries around distractions or work tasks that really didn’t align to my future objectives.
I think Clare’s ability to capture my patterns of thinking and bring that to the surface each session, ready for me to challenge myself on “is that true”, “do I really believe that” was truly valuable throughout the coaching programme.
As mentioned, the value I got from working with Clare would be challenging my thoughts against my actions and beliefs. They didn’t always marry up but It’s only when you take time to sit and talk through those that I had my ‘aha moment’ or a clearer plan of my next steps expertly guided out by Clare but in a way that she gives you the space to get there and feel in control of what is coming next. I’d definitely recommend Clare given her proven ability to adapt to various levels of coaching needs and provide an ongoing value that lasts way past your coaching session! A big thank you to Clare for her help!!
If you are looking for outcomes like these, contact us to talk about your – or your organisation’s – transition and leadership struggles and how coaching could support you in working through those.
