We worked, last year, with a career coaching client who was looking for roles in both the UK and abroad.
Background
The client had been working in the UK and was well regarded in her industry, with good connections. Our client was seeking a role similar to the one she had left and, since she had dual nationality, circumstances made it possible for her to widen her search.
The assignment
Our coach, Michaela Henshaw, is an experienced executive coach, career coach, facilitator and consultant with extensive experience in large global organisations at a senior director level across Finance, HR and Transformational Change.
Michaela established a coaching relationship with our client which enabled her to explore the options around her career transition and her career aspirations with regard to a new role either in the UK or in the USA.
Our client therefore needed support in terms of framing her candidacy in both markets as well as reaching out to contacts in a new marketplace.
Our approach
Initially Michaela worked with our client to identify her desired positive outcomes and measures of progress along the way, using a pragmatic and solutions based approach.
She assessed our client’s confidence and resilience levels, and developed a personalised plan to build and maintain these at maximum levels throughout the process to ensure that our client was in the best possible position to positively and effectively explore and promote herself throughout the process.
To explore and define career aspirations, identify our client’s desired next role and ideal organisations, and the optimal way to secure this, Michaela used a wide ranging toolkit (including psychometric tools) to support the discussion.
Our client was potentially seeking a role overseas and needed additional support with regards to framing her resume, broadening her network and approach to interview. The nature of the assignment led us to set up a tripartite career coaching arrangement with a partner company in the USA. Michaela therefore worked in tandem with a coach from ClearRock Inc. in the USA.
The tripartite coaching arrangement
Our aim was to ensure that the service from both coaches was seamless and confidentiality was maintained where appropriate. The coaches agreed ways of working that ensured consistency of communication and a level of transparency that would work for all parties while maintaining that confidentiality.
The ClearRock coach, Pauline Fournier, worked with Michaela to agree protocols so they kept each other in the loop, after checking in with our client, to ensure that knowledge was shared when it would be helpful. The two coaches agreed upfront on who was accountable for what so that the coaching objectives were well supported and all parties circled back regularly to ensure expectations were met.
They agreed objectives, boundaries and regular touchpoints in terms of keeping our client on course with regards to what she was seeking to accomplish.
In the US, Pauline made introductions to recruiters, head-hunters and network forums appropriate for the client’s job search and ensured her second resume was specific to the relevant market and was properly formatted and presented.
Michaela, in the UK, covered the same ground but the emphasis was more on coaching around personal brand and resilience techniques to keep her confidence and performance levels high throughout the process.
Coaching objectives:
10Eighty’s coach, Michaela, worked with our client on defining her Personal Brand and the contribution and value she could bring to a new employer.
Implicit in this was our client’s thinking about the culture of the organisation she needed to really thrive and deliver her best work.
It was important to our client to find a role that allowed her to play to her strengths and motivators. Michaela worked closely with our client to guide and encourage while building her resilience and bolstering her confidence.
The coaching process also supported our client to validate her thought processes to ensure she was making the right decisions in line with her aspirations. The overall goal being to ensure she was holding out for the right role in the right organisation.
Outcome
Our client achieved her objective of finding a director level role in a US based company. She is finding the work both challenging and fulfilling, and is delighted that the organisational culture aligns with her personal workstyle and preferences.
Coach’s comment
This assignment worked well because the client really valued that both coaches worked hard to establish ground rules for a trusting coaching relationship, really listening and using empathy to understand what it was that she needed; she knew what she wanted but identifying her exact requirements took a little work and introspection.
Clear boundaries were outlined so that there was consistent messaging from both coaches, in terms of the different markets, while Michaela also worked on personal branding and resilience skills.
This was the first time 10Eighty and ClearRock had engaged in a three way coaching programme. It was straightforward and successful because of the way it was set up by the coaching team.
In conclusion, this was a great experience all round for client and coaches.
