Case Studies
Find out how compassionate candor and dedicated coaching transformed a few of our clients. We’ve changed the names of our clients to maintain confidentiality.
Balancing Growth and Team Needs
The Situation
My client, David, the managing director of a division within a dynamic business portfolio, believed he could drive a team to success through the sheer force of their own commitment and willpower. But, changes in his company and the aggressive goals he set for his division suggested this approach wouldn’t work. David would need to learn to set aside his impulses. He’d have to loosen some control and embrace the power in his team to make progress.
The Approach
As David’s consultant, my first challenge was gaining his trust to maintain an open line of communication, emphasizing that I was there to help him.
He was a very forceful leader, often relegating others to support roles. The shift he made was leveraging his positive qualities (visionary, assertive, captivating, astute businessman,
change-maker) differently. This meant reducing the typically negative behavior, like overt aggression and frustration with his team at every turn.
With the team, my presence as an impartial third-party served as a signal they were no longer stuck under David’s authoritarian rule. I enabled them to find their voices to challenge rather than quietly ‘accepting’ David’s direction, when appropriate.
We developed a roadmap for operating principles for a variety of group processes during subgroup and whole-team meetings.
The Impact
With his aggression diminished and the team owning their power, David could now lead more effectively. His team felt they could speak up and contribute more wholeheartedly to individual and collective goals.
An amusing-yet-revealing indicator of the power of the intervention with this team was a surprise stunt they pulled on David at one of our final offsites. They became so liberated in speaking truth to power that they made parody T-shirts featuring David’s face and some of his most aggressive retorts. They would never have dared to challenge him even in a playful way before this intervention!
Transitioning from Surgeon to Corporate Leader
The Situation
Dr. John Maybrook had transitioned from a private specialty surgical practice to an in-house Medical Affairs role where he felt he could “have an even greater impact on patients by developing products for surgeons.” In his first year in the new role, he had earned his manager’s praise for his ability to rapidly produce exceptional work and bring valuable medical insights to business strategies. Esteemed in his field as a lead soloist, he was winning kudos.
But as a team player and corporate leader, he had a lot to learn. Like many successful people entering a new culture, he didn’t know what he didn’t know and had already made a few missteps.
The Approach
John identified the value he brought to the company and the instincts that served him well for many years as a surgeon. He came to realize that these same instincts were no longer his strengths, but rather hindrances in a new environment where he needed to be a team player.
From the data provided in self-assessments and 360 feedback, we initiated a dual-focus program of learning and adapting to corporate standards and practices while enhancing consensus building and situational awareness skills.
The Impact
After a successful coaching engagement, John shared these lessons learned:
• Change the pace to fit the environment. Surgical speed was no longer necessary. Speed alone denied John the time to listen to and consider all options.
• Corporate control is more diffuse. He concluded, “I had to learn where the guardrails were and stay within them, recognizing that I had the power within my immediate environment if I exercised it wisely.”
• Decision-making becomes a group process. As a surgeon, John’s successful outcomes were based on his expertise. In a corporation, successful leadership and positive results required more dialogue, pulse checking with stakeholders, and trust.
Now, having managed his reflexive patterns, Dr. Maybrook has internalized the lessons and was promoted to an expanded role with increased headcount.
From Over-Commitment to Focused Entrepreneurial Efforts
The Situation
Gaye launched a business and amassed a small roster of ongoing clients. She had a successful and growing network but her business wasn’t growing. “I don’t think my image reflects me as I want to be seen, and I think it’s hurting me,” Gaye declared.
The Approach
Through coaching, Gaye learned she was “jumping” at too many things and spreading herself too thin. An aggressive networker, she involved herself in numerous civic endeavors, sitting on local government commissions and participating in community organizations.
That same over-commitment impulse repeated itself in her business. Gaye’s company was focused on three separate areas: product marketing, facilitation, and project management services, which she tried bundling into one core offering.
The reality, however, was that it was as if Gaye was running three separate companies, with different clients and value propositions. None of these services was getting enough attention, or business, to justify keeping them all.
The Impact
With new insights from our coaching sessions, Gaye approached her business more strategically and things began to happen for her emotionally and financially. Learning to “trust her gut” led her to focus on the stronger parts of her company. She also learned how to have difficult conversations with employees, colleagues, and vendors so she wasn’t shouldering all the business burden.