Executive Coaching
Eric Kaufmann Executive Coaching Brochure 
(277K PDF)
Susan Curtin Executive Coaching Brochure (325K PDF)
Greg Fasbinder Executive Coaching Brochure (277K PDF)
Background
Jeff was a newly promoted VP at a very large housing agency. His staff was 115 strong and their annual budget was north of $100 Million. Jeff had risen through the ranks over an eleven year span and was well regarded by the C Suite leaders. His division had very strong performance for five years; and the executive team had just announced growth expectations for the division. Due to industry cherry picking, three of his top managers had been recruited away and he was facing growth demands while forming a new senior team.
In addition, there was growing pressure from his peers to divide some of Jeff's growing responsibilities among them; this appeared to be motivated by internal political land grab rather than strategic intentions. Simultaneously, his new managers, recruits from the outside, while adjusting to the corporate culture, were faltering and negatively affecting their team morale and engagement.
Jeff wanted to streamline his department, reduce competition with his peers, and continue to grow his division.
Identified Need
Jeff worked with his I4R coach over nine months to address the following objectives:
- Internal Focus:
- Establish a clear mission for the whole department
- Collaboratively develop team norms and expectations
- Help the new managers adjust to the corporate culture
- External Focus:
- Engage peers more directly in leadership team meetings
- Offer increased contribution to the strategic planning process
- Increase Executive Team clarity and support for his projects
As the overarching success factor, all department employees completed a satisfaction and engagement survey to establish a baseline of the current mood and internal stability. A clear focus was maintained to make the coaching seamless to Jeff's tasks and objectives and immediately applicable to his environment.
Solution
- Using a methodology that directly measures actual talent, we objectively, quickly, and accurately measured competency. We learned what each manager pays attention to as they make decisions - and also what they don't pay attention to. Therefore, we had a helpful indicator of the sources of each manager's strengths and vulnerabilities.
- Jeff initiated weekly coaching meetings with his new managers to provide them immediate and focused problem solving and strategic thinking.
- We partnered with Jeff at three internal supervisor meetings over four months to establish the team norms and expectations. These norms were integrated into their performance evaluations and expectations were integrated into department plans and goals.
- Jeff used our executive coaching process to conceive, visualize, and articulate a cross departmental committee. This committee was to focus on improving the speed and accuracy of client experiences. The committee members were Jeff's peers with whom he needed to improve communication and collaboration.
Impact
Jeff and his managers, with solicited input from staff, created a mission for the direction of the department. It led to a better understanding between staff and the managers and a greatly improved the work environment because staff knew their opinions were appreciated and considered.
With Jeff's regular coaching, the new managers were able to hyper accelerate their integration. A satisfaction survey administered nine months after the initial one revealed significantly increased engagement.
Over six months the New Committee was formed, met, and struggled to reach their goals. While the experience did not yield the intended benefits, Jeff's working relationship with his peers improved as they grew more familiar and collaborative in the process. One of the greatest result was that Jeff's time was freed up to concentrate on what he enjoyed most, developing and implementing novel strategic initiatives that drive the organization's mission. Moreover, the senior executives developed greater clarity about Jeff's abilities and invited him to play a more central and consistent role in forming corporate wide strategy.