Case Studies

I began the sessions with this client, a director in the Ministry of Defence, by helping her identify her strengths. I asked her to highlight peaks and passions, highs and lows and to list her top ten strengths. It gave her huge insight into what she had achieved to date and reminded her of situations that had been tough but which she had overcome. This alone had increased her confidence and self-awareness.

In the next session we began to work through the Strength Finder book. Clients taking the career programme have homework to do between sessions. Her tasks were to further enhance her top five strengths identified through Strength Finder. The tasks were also designed to raise awareness of how those strengths could impact others. Through this exercise she discovered a new set of criteria for the next role.

We worked with vision and long term goals. This helped the client build a picture of where she saw herself in five, ten, fifteen and twenty years time.

After identifying her own vision, we worked through the list of competencies required by her organisation. Against each competency she needed to assess where her skills were at present, whether it was relevant to her job, and if so, whether she needed to develop it further. This helped her to see where she was making a contribution and where she needed further development. It enabled her to build an action plan to work with over the next year.

Results

The client took responsibility for the changes she could make at work and at home. As a result of coaching, she started making more time for friends and family which increased her motivation at work.

She made time to go out for a walk at lunchtime instead of staying at her desk. She admitted this actually had a positive impact on her work output. She began to network more in the workplace which led to a fantastic work shadowing opportunity.

Her feedback at the end of our four sessions was:

“I’m pleased to say I’ve already benefitted from coaching with the wonderful Kish Modasia.

“I highly recommend career coaching, and am happy to speak to any colleagues considering it or wishing to know more.”

The client was unhappy in her sales and marketing job despite the fact she consistently met targets and received bonuses.

We began by identifying her strengths. I then asked her to think about people within her network who may be able to help her with her job search. She told me she didn’t really have a network as she worked remotely from the rest of the sales team and lived in a fairly isolated area.

I challenged her to begin building a network. Despite some reluctance, by the next session she had five names, three of which she had already approached.

We started to explore her skills for the next role.  After further and deeper questioning I discovered that she and her partner were restoring a Grade II listed house. Due to frustration with the architect, she had drawn her own set of plans which against all odds had been accepted by the planning office.

I also discovered that she and her partner had built the staircase because they couldn’t find a skilled carpenter willing to take on the job.

After much questioning and listening more and more of her skills and qualities emerged. I helped her to see how they could be transferred as skills and qualities for her next role.

I also gave her the Type Dynamic Indicator and Strength Finder exercises. 

Results

The biggest achievement of our sessions was getting her to acknowledge that qualities she took for granted were actually very valuable. She saw that the exceptional talent and skills she had shown in the restoration project could be transferred to her next role.

This client had just moved to an extremely senior position in the civil service. He took over a team of people, several of whom had applied for his job. The tension in the team was huge.

During our first session we talked about the 80/20 rule. I showed him that within organisations, 80% is outside of our control.  Therefore he needed to focus on the 20% that he was able to influence.

He decided to call a team meeting during which he wanted people to have an open, honest discussion and would ask them for feedback. The team was surprised and came along with scepticism and some harsh words.  However, by questioning and listening he found out a great deal about their roles and responsibilities. He made them aware of how each person played a part in helping the team to function well. He had opened a door of communication that had not existed before.

This was a very different way of working for the organisation. His approach had a double benefit: he no longer felt isolated, and the team felt valued and included.

During the next session I got him to acknowledge his courage and leadership skills by asking him to replay the team meeting in his mind. I also encouraged him to celebrate this and future successes.

Results

This client was initially a great sceptic of telephone coaching. However, his team is spread throughout the country. Through our work he has discovered, if used effectively, it’s a good way to communicate efficiently with them. This discovery has saved long hours of travel and has added value to his own family time.

He has realised it’s people that are the barrier, not the technology. He has been tasked with overseeing the pilot and implementation of an IT system.  At our last session he agreed to have an open and honest meeting with the IT director. He agreed to take suggestions and plans of how to communicate the change and provide appropriate training for employees.

The client came to me with several problems. She felt she was being bullied by her manager and was also struggling to reconcile the restrictions of her Asian culture with her career.  The problems in both areas were interlinked.

She had had an unofficial arrangement for a year which allowed her to start and finish earlier than the rest of the workforce. This allowed her to take her children to nursery and collect them. However, when contracts were renewed, her manager withdrew the arrangement.

Another concern was that the manager delivered presentations she had prepared rather than allowing her to do this herself.

She regularly took work home so did not spend enough quality time with her husband and children. Neither did she communicate much with other team members as she felt overwhelmed by the amount of work she had to do. Another problem lay with a project she was leading which was due to be implemented in a few months' time. She had grave concerns that it would go live before it had been thoroughly tested.

We discussed the various issues and tackled one at a time, starting with her working hours. It became obvious the guilt she felt about the children stemmed from the pressures of her culture. The guilt added to her stress at work.

The struggle between career and culture was draining her energy and her confidence. Through our discussion she realised she could ask her parents and in-laws to help with the children. We explored some relaxation techniques and she pledged to spend at least half an hour a day for what we called “Me Time”.

We then tackled the issue of getting flexible hours written into her contract. We came up with two options. The first option was to speak to her manager again. The second was to ask the union to intervene which she was reluctant to do. However she told me she wanted to tackle the problem, not only for herself, but to stop the manager from treating other people the same way. 

She approached her manager and he still did not agree. She then approached the union  and succeeded in getting official flexible working hours.

The next issue was about the presentations.  We used visualisation techniques to help give her the confidence she needed to deliver an upcoming presentation. Before our next session she contacted me to tell me it had been a great success. As a result of her presentation she had built better relationships with her immediate team and the wider national team.

In the next session we recapped on how much she had stepped into her role as a leader.  Having built up a better relationship with the team we spoke about delegation as a means of reducing her workload.

She found delegation difficult. Through further questioning I led to her see that delegation wouldn’t just reduce her workload. It would also help team members to develop. I also encouraged her to think about how she would use the extra time which involved lifting some of the cultural limitations.

Results

During the final session she said she was meeting up regularly with her friends and had started having coffee with work colleagues to get to know them better. By delegating more tasks her stress levels had reduced. By asking for help from her extended family her relationships were much better and they appreciated her more.

She said: “Kish challenged some of my thinking and questioned me more and more. Through the coaching I have learnt about what resources I have both within myself and in the people around me. I know I now have several tools that I can use in the future. I have also increased my ‘Me Time’. I’ve found it has helped hugely in reducing my stress levels. By making more time for myself, my own self-respect has grown.”

The client, a sales director in an IT company, had concerns about time management and his workload. He also wanted to explore the possibility of starting up his own company.

We began by looking at his role models - Richard Branson and Lance Armstrong. Looking at leadership in this way really brought out his energy and enthusiasm. I got him to match his own aspirations to those of his role models. He agreed to explore his business start-up ideas and produce a mind map for each idea. In further sessions he mentioned he had been bullied at school. He told me that the coaching was making his self-awareness and observations sharper. This helped him to realise his weight was a defence mechanism that he had used to deal with the bullying.

He decided to start a fitness regime including diet and exercise. Some of the exercise would be done at lunchtime. This was a conscious decision as previously he had not moved from his desk during the lunch break. Talking about the bullying helped his confidence and he began to work from a different mind-set.

Results

The client lost four stone over a year and within the first year he did a triathlon. He has maintained the weight loss and regularly takes part in challenging fitness fundraising events. His confidence and self-awareness have increased and his stress levels have decreased.

This is a classic example of how people come to coaching with one issue and work through many others.

He told me: “Coaching has enabled me to get a handle on my life.  I used to find excuses why things didn’t change for me (such as my weight) and now I know that only I can change them.

“I have discovered my strengths and realised that skilled people, such as Kish, can see and appreciate them. They just need a little uncovering and a little polishing for everyone else to appreciate them.”