Transitional and Transformational Coaching

The coachee was one of three Heads of Department reporting to a Divisional Director. He had been in the organisation for 22 years and had been promoted for his technical knowledge and expertise.

He wanted to move into the Divisional Director position that was to become available within six months. The issue was that he had very little leadership presence and lacked confidence. In my work with him I established a working alliance in order to build trust and enable me to both challenge and support him to grow into a strong enough position to be considered for the post.

Once the working alliance was established I utilised my experience of him to feed back his impact on me and the limited impact I saw him having within the organisational system. In both cases his impact was non-assertive and lacking in leadership presence.

An example of this was that he spoke very quickly and would fill any space, so that he spoke at people rather than listened and responded. I suggested an experiment where he stayed silent with me for three minutes, in order for him to experience his internal process when being silent.

Through the trust that had been established he reluctantly agreed to the experiment, which he was nervous about undertaking. He managed to stay silent for three minutes and I asked him to share his experience and the sense he made from it. He recognised that his anxiety rose dramatically in the first minute and then gradually dissipated over the next two minutes.

He made the connection that he would talk at people because he always stayed within the first minute of extreme discomfort around silence. As a result of this he began to experiment with not speaking continually and began listening.

This had an immediate positive effect on those around him and he was able to report this in subsequent sessions, and led to a significant change in his communication style.

Overview

An underlying issue was his anxiety and lack of confidence, which would be particularly intense at executive board meetings he would be invited to make presentations to.

I asked him to imagine himself at an executive board meeting. I invited him to go round the table and identify how he felt in relation to each of the board members. In general he didn’t feel he was an equal to the people around the table. I asked him who in particular did he feel uncomfortable with, he identified Mr A. I then suggested an experiment where he sat in a chair as Mr A would sit and imagine himself as Mr A.

I explained the purpose was to enable him to see the world through the other persons eyes and gain some empathy and balance to his relationship with Mr A. I then spoke to him as Mr A and asked how he saw the world, what pressure he was under, what were his main concerns etc.

He was able to respond as Mr A and answer my questions. I also asked how he viewed my client and what did he want from him. The outcome was the coachee felt significantly able between sessions to meet with Mr A and have a frank and open discussion which led to him receiving positive affirmation from Mr A and a significant improvement in their relationship and my client’s confidence ( they eventually played golf together!).

The above are two examples of how I worked with this coachee over a period of a year. As a summary the work involved creating a working alliance, utilising my signature presence to raise the coachees awareness of his lack of impact within the system and utilising experiments to enable him to begin the process of change and growth through owning and becoming more of who he was.

As a result he undertook a transformation in his communication style, understood himself and had access to tools and tactics to support himself, and gained in confidence. The change was noticed within the organisation and he was promoted to Divisional Director.

Performance Coaching

The coachee was the SVP of a £4bn European organisation with 20,000 + Staff

The coachee had not experienced coaching before, however, she recognised that in facing the challenges of the role she would welcome a confidential coaching relationship. She was not looking for mentoring, she wanted to be able to talk through the many issues she faced in a confidential environment.

The work initially involved building trust through my professional credibility and professional coaching skill and experience. The coachee responded positively to an environment which allowed her to put out her thoughts in a sometimes seemingly random fashion, engage in a discussion which supported the identification of themes and patterns, questioned and challenged her assumptions and perceptions and enabled her to identify her habitual processes and responses.

This enabled her to gain greater flexibility and choice and provided a sounding board and space to offload to an independent and objective partner.

Overview

Topics covered included decision making (particularly where there was a straight choice between two options), leadership style, vision and values, relationship with the chairman, work/life balance, gender issues, emotional intelligence, “being” rather than “doing”, personal and career history, going with her gut, succession planning.

My role as the coach was to provide a “safe container” which allowed exploration of these topics and the underlying emotions feelings and responses of the SVP. As a result of our discussions she reported she felt able to better lead the organisation, interact with colleagues, had greater influence within the business and achieved “Peak Performance”