Case Studies
My start point is always that the individual or team are responsible for their own development and my role is to come alongside them to accelerate, deepen and widen their learning and change.
Here are some examples of the work that I have been involved in, along with explanations of how we addressed particular challenges, and the outcomes that were achieved as a result of our work together.
Executive Coaching
Marketing executive, international news group
Offering great expertise in her niche are, she had to win-over others to engage with a progressive approach rather than being blown around by the latest fads.
Challenge
My client worked in a fast-paced and challenging organisation with a fluid structure and many strong characters. Having been in this demanding business for about a year she needed to raise her impact and influence with those around her. She offered great expertise in her own area and had to win over others to engage with a progressive approach, rather than being blown around by too many competing ideas.
Coaching
We worked on how she could best create the space in the day-to-day, to focus on the strategic agenda, by using her team more. Also, we developed a plan to identify and engage with the key stakeholders at all levels including the Managing Director. She had to build their support by both offering powerful plans, based on solid data, that challenged some of their pre-conceptions and habits and by delivering some quick wins.
Outcomes
My client found her own way of influencing and communicating her strategies, building some strong relationships and increasing her confidence and willingness to challenge others. She increased her own resilience and so felt better able to respond to the fleeting ideas of others that had been such a distraction to a coherent strategy in her area.
Operations manager, investment company
In a long established and quite traditional, mid-size, financial company, with a strong culture, led by and for the revenue generators, his challenge was to establish himself in the business, building his credibility and network.
Challenge
This leader started in a long established and quite traditional, mid-size, financial company, with a strong culture, led by and for the revenue generators. His challenge was to establish himself in the business, building his credibility and network so that he could tackle some significant changes in the standards, processes, and ways of working. Much of his experience was in larger companies.
Coaching
We considered how he had to pay attention to multiple needs in parallel as he started in the business. He had to engage with key stakeholders, being aware of first impressions; both listening carefully and establishing his own expertise. He reviewed and developed his immediate team, deciding how best to configure, engage and energise them. Our work together provided the space for him to make sense of what he was noticing and experiencing and preparing for key interventions both with the team and with key stakeholders.
Outcomes
He successfully developed a strategic change plan for the business and built the support from the Board and other stakeholders to deliver on his strategy. The trust and buy-in that he gained for his ideas gave him the confidence to fulfil his role and bring about the necessary changes in the business. The raised performance in his own team were key to delivering the changes successfully.
Managing partner, London, global law practice
Having been in position for some time, this leader needed to tackle some emerging issues within the partnership and raise business performance as the market became more challenging.
Challenge
Having been in position for some time, this leader needed to tackle some emerging issues and tensions within the partnership at the same time as raising business performance as the market became more challenging. He also wanted to consider his own options for the future, securing his legacy and preparing to move into a different phase in his career.
Coaching
We worked together through some of the immediate relationship issues, raising awareness of his own patterns of responding and how to shift these for better interpersonal and business outcomes. This was linked to how he worked with the leadership team to raise performance and leverage support for change with some of the most influential partners.
Outcomes
As a result of our work together he led the changes needed in the business with wide support. He strengthened the performance of his immediate team. We also created the space for him to clarify his future options, how to open-up the pathways and also settle on the criteria that would enable him to choose between them. He has since, gone on to make a continuing contribution to the business from a new role.
Senior executive, major telecoms and internet service provider
The business was undergoing considerable change in technologies, regulations and the competitive landscape and was looking to shift its culture and ways of working and he was leading this change in his area.
Challenge
The business was undergoing considerable change in technologies, regulations and the competitive landscape. My client was responsible for a large part of the business, internationally, focused on the supply side and delivery. The business was looking to shift its culture and ways of working and he was leading this change in his area.
Coaching
The focus of our work together was to enhance my client’s leadership style to raise the contribution and confidence of his senior leadership team as they embarked on generating a new bold vision for the future, one where they embraced change with more positivity.
Outcomes
My client experienced a shift in how he saw and connected the strategic issues with the immediate challenges in the team and business. He developed a stronger long-term perspective, adapted his style to strengthen some key relationships and generated a greater collective commitment to the opportunities ahead.
Team Coaching
Key leadership team of a major telecoms and internet service provider
The business is undergoing considerable change in technologies, regulations, and the competitive landscape and the leadership team are responsible for a substantive culture change and the development of a new vision for their area of the business.
Challenge
The business is undergoing considerable change in technologies, regulations, and the competitive landscape. The leadership team are responsible for a substantive culture change and the development of a new vision for their area of the business. This meant a substantial shift in how they see their own client base and standards of service offered. In turn this meant the team needed to lift its focus to a longer-term strategic agenda and away from the day to day delivery of solutions.
Coaching
Working with a colleague, we took the team through a series of workshops and coaching conversations. The focus was on deepening their connections and willingness to be open with each other. This included offering some direct feedback to each other. After establishing the needs of different stakeholders, we used some creative processes for the team to generate an ambitious, shared vision and align themselves behind it. From this they also recognised the shift in leadership style required of them and their immediate reports, with a much greater focus on a generative, coaching style. We supported the team as they endeavoured to hold to this vision and develop a more coaching style of leadership. We also created a developmental process to cascade the changed approach to the next layer of leadership.
Outcomes
Business priorities were rapidly changed by the global pandemic and the team were seen to rapidly step-up to this need, partly because of the greater openness and trust between them. The leadership team kept to their commitment to use a more coaching style, which was greatly appreciated by their people. They also sustained the wider development of the next layer, having a beneficial impact across the whole function. Work on the longer-term vision was slowed by the need to respond to the pandemic but they have continued to engage key stakeholders through this process, putting in place the detailed plans to turn vision into reality.
Public sector services: Global technology services company
The business was undergoing a major strategic change in the nature of its services, the culture needed to be much more rapidly adaptive and client focused.
Challenge
The business was undergoing a major strategic change in its services, in a rapidly changing market. In line with this, the culture needed to be much more rapidly adaptive, client focused and collaborative. This leadership team had responsibility for a very significant segment of the business, with substantial, high profile, long term contracts that needed to be sold and managed. There were great individual performers, but the team needed to develop greater cross-connections, so that they could learn from each other, generate new and innovative solutions, and smarten their account management.
Coaching
We started by using a structured process for people to share more about themselves and what motivated them and what drove their behaviour at work and in the team. Building on this increased trust and openness they looked at what key stakeholders needed from them as a leadership team. This included the customer, their own people and the wider business demands. From this they recognised how their behaviour needed to shift, refocusing priorities, increasing shared learning and connecting people across their teams for better client delivery.
Outcomes
At the core was generating better quality conversations and mutual understanding and support as colleagues. From this flowed a reframe of how they could work better together in the interests of clients and the wider business. They became less narrowly focused on their individual targets and had greater ownership of their collective contribution. This led to more learning and cross-working between teams and better/faster solutions offered to clients. A successful team stepped-up to making an even bigger financial contribution to the business.
Pensions advisory business within a global FMCG business
A unique and newly formed business with in a much larger, long-standing company ,the leadership team had a very complicated stakeholder community to navigate.
Challenge
This was a unique and newly formed business in a much larger, long-standing, global business, with considerable pensions assets. The leadership team had a very complicated stakeholder community to navigate, including the parent company, the separate pensions Boards in each country, their own teams and various specialist external advisors and regulators. They had great individual expertise which needed to be connected for success and a good level of mutual respect. Many had worked together for a time but there were some tensions between them that impacted performance.
Coaching
I worked alongside them to help deepen their mutual understanding using psychometrics and a process for open dialogue, both when I was there and in other meetings. We worked on a longer term vision and I coached them live, as they engaged their people in this. Through the process it became clear that we needed to consider the tensions more systemically. There were conflicting expectations between key stakeholders that needed to be tackled at the Board, rather than at the Executive level. With the agreement of the CEO, I raised this with the new Chairman, framing the challenge, and having it addressed in the appropriate forum.
Outcomes
The business had a much clearer vision and connection between this and immediate strategy. We also improved the mutual understanding, trust and working patterns within the team, which raised performance and their capacity for change. Finally, I helped to unlock the tensions and enable the team to fully progress, by having the key stakeholder issues addressed in the Board.