Executive Development
We can’t begin to tell you how many executives we’ve encountered who have been ‘profiled’ and ‘assessed’ two, three or sometimes four times in their career, as part of some organisational talent audit or succession planning exercise; usually the profile report received was read once, or perhaps a second time with someone from HR, and then filed away. And that’s because the assessors themselves are often only good at assessing – they don’t actually understand the ‘how’ of moving an individual forward from where they’re at to where that person needs or want to be. Happily we do. This is the account of the development work we did with a senior operations executive; he too arrived at the first meeting with a couple of assessment profiles under his arm. Our work with him encompassed some behavioural change, some shifting of mindsets and what he himself described as ‘big shock treatment’.
We’ve worked very successfully with a lot of Executives over the years, but here are the reflections of one individual working in Financial Services, as told to us in one of our follow-up feedback interviews after his final coaching session. Already a very successful Executive, he held an Operations Lead role at one of the major banking houses. We were recommended to him by one of his colleagues.
“It was always rightly assumed that I was capable and an expert in the basics of management and change, as that is what I had built my reputation on. When the coach came into our first session he had a real understanding of how to handle clients – it wasn’t just sit down and have a cup of tea, it was objectives-based and fundamentally challenging of the way I do things. My coach was very open, honest and straightforward, but the session was quite hard – I was asked some very tough questions that I had never been asked before about how I do things, and what I really wanted which included a bullishness and inner self-confidence when dealing with my CEO and Executive Directors.
“He quickly recognised what we needed to work on, and stepped ‘out of the template’. He can be as firm, open, plain-talking, challenging as you want him to be. But if that doesn’t work, he works his way into the style that actually works best between the two of you. He isn’t dictatorial, he just prodded and nudged me when necessary. There wasn’t much in the way of management psychology and practice that he wasn’t aware of – but he didn’t give me a list of text book frameworks to take away and use at the end of every session. Every now and then, he would spot something under the surface, draw it out, and provide a practical and pragmatic framework I could quickly slot into and make use of.
“We got into a good routine – I’d write the agenda, he would prepare based on that. At the end, he would always ask for feedback on himself. We spent half of my sessions working on my confidence issues and exercises to deal with that, but we also spent at least half of the time on new material – talking about the typical scenarios I face day to day. In most of the sessions it felt like I was doing 80% of the talking. It showed I did understand myself – but what I couldn’t do on my own was to find a bridge between this understanding and how to put it into practice in my working world. In the 20% of the time when he was speaking, he helped me to spot those bridges, and to walk over them. My coach doesn’t just do the machine, he gets into his client and sees things in the future the way his client does.
“The coach was also able to understand when to use big shock treatment. He had me work with an actress for 3-4 sessions on how I appear to others and how I can influence senior executives. She was very powerful and full of confidence, and she really put me through my paces. She had huge empathy for me and my role in the work place, and she quickly assessed my thinking, personality and where my confidence was letting me down. Using me on the stage, pictures and drawings and mind-games, she and my coach took me from a place where I was the only one who didn’t say anything in meetings run by my seniors, to someone who was happy to be in free flow discussion with anyone, irrespective of seniority.
“In terms of impact, they pushed me from being considered as someone who is ‘very professionally capable at operations and change management’, to a guy who is an “it doesn’t matter what you give him to deliver, he is an Executive Leader who stands up and people want to follow.” And he is.
Of course, not every coaching assignment requires several sessions in short order. We work with one executive who just wants to get our input and guidance at key stages or transition points in his career.
As he puts it, “You don’t need long interventions. My coach can effect change in a conversation. Last time I asked for a session on stakeholder management, he gave me a framework but vitally he also helped me apply it, drummed it home, and gave me a specific action plan – and within 2 weeks I had a much better job in the organisation, by tapping into those stakeholders, and understanding what I wanted from them, and they from me.”