Large Corporates - Multinational Manufacturer
Cathy was engaged as a business coach to a Managing Director of the UK subsidiary of a multinational manufacturing company. The UK company was under threat of closure by the parent for underperformance. Our Client, the UK MD, said he wanted help to figure out how to ‘kick the staff into shape’ so that the business could be saved.
In fear of losing his own job the MD was unable to motivate and inspire his team. This resulted in tension, little creative problem solving or inspirational thinking, and very little chance of saving the UK operation.
The stress of carrying the responsibility for the future of 500 employees and the personal implications of any ‘failure’ was overwhelming for the MD. He found himself unable to sleep, unable to think, unable to respond appropriately.
We worked on two areas. The first was to consider how he could better resource himself. Following a self-audit of his current resourcefulness across various areas e.g. emotional, physical, intellectual he discovered that he was under-resourced in many of them. We developed an action plan and a programme to address these shortfalls.
This had nearly immediate positive benefits on his resilience levels, and he was able to think much more clearly and relate much more positively to others.
We then were able to begin to work on the issues. We first worked to discriminate between areas he could control and those he couldn’t, and between those he could influence and those he couldn’t.
The outcome: He was able to see more clearly what actions he needed to take, and in what order. He overcame his earlier panic, was able to access to his own inspirational thinking and start to inspire others again.
He made cutbacks and revised the business strategy. Within 6 months the operation was out from under the threat of closure. Two years later, still under the same executive’s leadership, the operation was upgraded yet again.