Adam was previously seen as a star performer and as the “go-to” guy for advice around technical challenges. Due to the organisations rapid expansion Adam’s line manager felt that Adam had lost his place in the company and was disengaged. The combined impact of this led to a decrease in productivity, damage to his brand as a professional, and a heightened number of situations that ended in unnecessary conflict. Adam felt he had no clear direction for where he wanted to take his career and needed to develop skills to get better outcomes for the teams in which he interacted.

Upon determining the key objectives that we would focus on for Adam we agreed on a six-session one-on-one coaching package to be held on a weekly basis. During the first coaching meeting with Adam we discussed the objectives in detail and Adam expressed his interest and openness in “giving the coaching a go”.

Firstly we focused on an exercise to help Adam tap into who he truly is, what his strengths are, and what is most important to him. Each coaching session ended with specific coaching assignments that furthered the coaching process. Adam took to the assignments with interest and enthusiasm which clearly indicated his buy-in to the process and his willingness to overcome anything that might be holding him back.

Once Adam had a deeper understanding of what is most import to him we continued to focus on his objectives. Using psychology as a backdrop for these discussions and drawing on specific examples from Adam’s own experience we analysed habitual thought practices and the concept of ‘why we do the things we do’. Understanding these concepts enabled Adam to analyse his own behaviours and to create ‘in-the-moment’ awareness of triggers that were leading to less than resourceful behaviours.  Now consciously aware of his hot-spots Adam was able to select from a range of options that, collectively, would lead to more positive outcomes.

With the foundation for change in place, we turned our attention to more concrete skills such as being mindful of the language we use, practicing effective listening, building rapport with others, and focusing on generating positive outcomes through gaining clarity and collaboration with all parties involved.

As Adam continued to experiment with new approaches to situations he reported more and more positive experiences with each passing week. During the post-coaching debrief it was felt that more observable evidence was needed to ensure Adam had gained all of the benefits of coaching. It was also felt that Adam could be more concrete in his career development plan which was a key coaching objective.

We agreed that an additional eight coaching sessions with a range of new objectives to build on previous successes would be beneficial.  Coaching resumed with Adam and he quickly capitalised on the feedback further enhancing his newly learned skills of communication, influencing, and rebuilding his brand. A key focus for this round of coaching was for Adam to clearly articulate his career development plan and, guided by a template, he quickly determined the areas he would like to focus on and his thoughts on how he might be able to achieve these.

Adam continued to show accelerated progress right through the coaching period and very quickly resumed his position as the “go-to” guy in his technical are of expertise. This was largely accomplished by Adam setting up lunch-time interest groups, proactively attending the project meetings across a range of product teams, and by writing a weekly ’wrap’ to key stakeholders highlighting the technical decisions made across a range of products and the wins he and the teams he was working with achieved.

With a growing interest in leadership we explored several leadership styles that Adam could employ to get better outcomes for himself, the teams he is working with, and for the company. Sharing many examples of overcoming challenging conversations and being able to influence others, to “let go”, and giving others the space to explore their own thinking his colleagues have remarked that “it’s great to have the old Adam back.”

Adam is back to performing at his previously high standard, is much happier in himself, and is now looking for team leadership opportunities within the organisation.