Coaching Case Study: The Wizard’s Pathway to Success

Coaching Case Study By Lin Peng Roy Lee
(Career Coach, SINGAPORE)

My client’s name is Tom and he is 27 years old. Tom came to me seeking career direction. He is an Engineer from a company based in Singapore. His job title is Engineer, given the role of Project Manager overseeing few projects. This is his first company since he graduated from school and has worked there for 9 years.

As I was trying to establish Tom’s career outcome, I discover the following challenges holding him back.

• Tom has never thought about what is next for him in term of his career although he expressed that he is not happy with the current company.
• As I probe into why he has not thought about his career strategy, I discovered that he is someone who lives in the present moment with a high drive in getting things done. He dislikes strategic planning finds it extremely difficult to sit down and plan. His StrengthsFinder assessment supports this finding as his Top 5 belongs to the “influencing”
• As I probed into why he is not happy with the current company, I discovered that he has that is badly impacting his project causing him to feel stressed. He has an Engineer in his project team who is not delivering to his expectation. Further conversation about this unfold that he does not know how to set clear expectation and communicate expectation to his people. Tom said that his boss has never set and communicate clear expectation to him as well. Thus, he is not even sure of how to do it.
• And next, he started to comment on the lack of leadership qualities in the management. As he is the lowest ranking Project Manager, he is always given the worst people for his team and this has been like that for 9 years. He is not confident that this company is one that he can grow and develop his career.

The Wizard’s Pathway to Success is the coaching model that I used during the coaching session. The objective or expected result is to assist the client to crystalize his desired outcome and current situation. And to create a resource list for him to achieve his desired outcome. Resource is drawn from the client’s experience, creativity, energy level, vision, and most important of all to act.

Wisdom for knowledge and experience.
Inspiration for creativity and innovation.
Zest for enthusiasm and energy.
Action for strategy and execution.
Resource for the pathway to the desired outcome.
Direction for vision and mission.

Throughout the coaching sessions, I held on to my coaching presence so that I can apply powerful listening, powerful questioning and providing effective feedback and outlining observations to help the client gain clarity, and to see different perspectives especially with underlying beliefs.

• As Tom talked, I recorded his inventory of strengths and at the right moment to feedback them back to him for his awareness. Thereafter to explore how he can make use of these strengths to achieve his outcome.
• I used scaling from 1 to 10 to help him keep track of where he is at towards his outcome at each point of time.
• I guided Tom to tap on his observation oh how other people set and communicate expectation in his Toastmaster Club where he is a member of.
• I guided Tom do his values, passion, interest and skills assessment to help him define what is it that is important to him and that he like to do. I will use this information to help him further clarify if the set outcome is what he wants.

What’s Next?

• Tom had resolved the immediate resource challenges.
• He is working on his short-term outcome which is to be a Manager by 2019 (2 years)
• Long-term outcome: To be a Department Head by 2032 (15 years).