Coaching Case Study By Cindy Poon
(Career Coach, SINGAPORE)

Coaching Case Study

Dina used to be an Account Director with one of the prominent Global Telco provider in the APAC region. She was headhunted by a regional competitor to be the Senior Business Development Director, to support the Management Team in the transformation and expansion of the business.

Dina accepted the new challenge based the few factors below:

She has been in the current role for the past 5 years and she doesn’t see any progression plan. On the other hand this new role will be able to provide her personal growth and career development opportunity.
She sees her past experience as a huge value add to the business in her new role

Moving from a global player to a regional player, this post some unforeseen challenges that created some impact for Dina as she managed her relationships with her Peers, Internal Clients and Management.

During one of her review session with her manager, Dina was shocked to receive feedbacks about her attitude and performance. She was perceived as aggressive, pragmatic and difficult to interact with, she was target oriented Manager rather than a Transformational Leader who plays the role of Change Catalyst. The role of Change Catalyst is crucial in an organisation going through transformation, this role provides assurance to the staff, and she needs to manage staff’s worries, confusion and to ensure buy-in and engagement. Hence apart from just managing business targets, Dina needs to uncover and exercise her soft skills as well.

Up until then, Dina thought she was doing a great job. However, her manager stated very clearly to her that, he valued her input and contribution to the team but her management style will make it very challenging for her to progress in her career. Dina realised that she needs to change as whatever had what supported her progressing in her career is no longer valid.

Dina decided to work with an Executive Coach, CP, to help support her in this journey. CP noticed that Dina is very serious person and very objective driven; she started exploring her underlying believes toward work and other aspects of Dina’s life.

CP discovered that Dina took the responsibility at a young age to taking care of her bigger family, parents, to a degree that she had forgot other aspects of her life. Dina was focusing mainly on her career to secure herself and family financially, no other life beside work, even her readings were about her career, money and how to gain more certifications.

Although the above belief has supported Dina progressing in her career for certain level, but started to, negatively, impact her progress to leadership level and the sense of fulfillment.

Dina was very committed to the coaching sessions and, by listening to her, it was obvious for CP to figure out the underlying belief. CP asked Dina to assess the other aspects of her life by using the “Wheel of Life” exercise and it was an eye opening for Dina.

CP capitalized on Dina’s strength being:

Serious
Committed
Objective driven
Good in setting goals and achieve them.

Together with her coach, they translated the result of the “Wheel of Life” into a set of simple and achievable actions which Dina committed to:

Exercise Routine 5-6 days a week
Practice her hobbies: Long Walks during week-ends, Writing and reading books
Discover a new place each quarter, take short breaks out of the country

The above helped to put on the surface the soft side of Dina and her way of interaction with people changed. Dina was promoted to an Executive Management level after 2 years from adopting the new changes which becomes her new life style.

The below skills and tools were used during the above coaching sessions: