CASE HISTORY : A COACHING PROJECT RECENTLY UNDERTAKEN BY A MOORE TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT CONSULTANT

Background:

A senior manager in an IT consulting organisation returning to work after 3 months sick leave that was stress related. Doctor's conditions for phased return to work include re-scope of current job role, attendance at a stress workshop, counselling support and a programme of Coaching.

Objectives: The following coaching objectives were agreed with the nominator (the individual's employer):

• Explore individual's relationships with key stakeholders and identify needs, expectations and issues
• Develop a range of influencing strategies and techniques for selling ideas & proposals
• Identify preferred way of responding to conflict and identify alternative approaches
• Develop approaches for building rapport quickly with new customers

Approach: A preliminary meeting was held to build the relationship and clarify the individual's needs.

During the first session, the Myers Briggs Type Indicator was used to help explore the individual's relationship with his boss - this appeared to be a central issue. Differences in perceiving function and attitude helped explain some of the communication difficulties the two had been experiencing. Discussion about the individual's inferior function appeared to confirm what had happened immediately prior to his absence from work.

Following some pre-work mapping key relationships, prior to session 2, the individual identified the various needs & expectations of his key stakeholders and identified those relationships that needed attention. Improvement actions were identified including the use of a role negotiation framework as preparation for a discussion to clarify role scope.

In the third session, the individual used the Thomas Kilman Conflict Styles questionnaire to identify his preferred style of responding to conflict situations. He recognised the need to indicate his level of agreement or disagreement to the ideas or proposals of others at an earlier stage and negotiate rather than avoid the issue until the last minute when he would compete and then walk away.

The fourth session focused upon influencing key stakeholders and the use of direct & indirect techniques. The individual applied both approaches to prepare for discussions with his boss. During this session, time was also spent on the use of assertiveness techniques, particularly 'inner dialogues' to help prepare for making 'cold calls' to internal customers.

Time in the final session was spent on hearing about how the individual had applied some of the techniques and evaluating success. The programme of sessions was reviewed using a checklist of goals; current situation; specific objectives and action plan. The nature of future support was discussed and it was agreed that the individual and the coach would talk again in three months time. The individual committed to provide feedback on the helpfulness of the sessions to the nominator (employer).