Who might benefit from strategy coaching?

Whilst coaching can be a valuable support and developmental tool at any time, managers often first consider it when at a pivotal point of their careers. Four typical situations are:
  • The successful functional line manager who is now preparing for a broader role eg a Board position
  • The new CEO
  • Setting up your own business
  • Contemplating major career change

From Function Head to Board Director

You may or may not be directly involved with the formal strategy development process for the company, but you will certainly be expected to think and act strategically and take a more holistic perspective of the business. You will need to learn not just how to “do things right” – your forte in the past – but how to decide what are “the right things to do”.

You will need to start to look beyond the efficient functioning of your own department and appreciate how your part of the business interacts with other functions to service the customer and deliver overall strategic success to the company.

To make this shift from efficient functional manager to strategically oriented director requires the development of a subtle blend of thinking and behavioural styles. It will require you to learn some new cognitive skills – e.g. systems thinking, analogy-making – but also to manage new emotions and stresses.

For example, you will have to face the greater anxiety that comes from a role with less direct control over events, but even more responsibility for results. You will need to keep functioning effectively in ambiguity and uncertainty, the usual state of affairs when dealing with complex strategic issues, without hard metrics or established rules and procedures. These are tests of character and judgement as much as technical ability.

These are not skills that can readily be learned on a management course. But with the support of a knowledgeable coach by their side, you can develop these capabilities over time as we work together on real situations in your new role.

New CEO

…and charged with developing a new strategy for the company. You may want to call in the consultants, but if strategy is not your home base, how do you evaluate their recommendations and keep tabs on the process? (and the costs – strategy consultancy is one of the most highly-priced services in business!)

More important still, you know that there are a host of other factors of importance in shaping, communicating and implementing a new strategy that consultants usually miss – notably, the politics and culture of the organisation.

I have extensive experience of what really happens when new strategies get formulated, debated and rolled out in large, complex organisations – and what makes the difference between those that work and those that fade away like water into the sand.

The quality of analysis behind the strategy is vital; the fit with the culture and capabilities of the organisation more important still; but most critical of all is the personal credibility and commitment of the leader. If you are developing a new business strategy, you need simultaneously to develop a personal strategy for managing yourself and your relationships with the wider organisation.

Setting up your own business

…and want help in ensuring you have a rigorously thought-through business model and strategy – and the personal robustness to handle the stresses of going it alone. Coaching is not just for corporate managers – indeed, the single entrepreneur, with few if any colleagues and no HR department, is in need of support more than most!

You might think of this as coaching to get you successfully through a presentation in the Dragons’ Den! (or, even if you do not intend that most public way of raising finance, then maybe an equivalent meeting with your own backers and lenders). Beyond that, you will have your bankers and shareholders, lawyers and consultants… - but who will you have who is as interested in you and your personal ease of mind as in your bottom line, and can understand how the two are related? A regular coaching session to talk through how its all going, how you feel and what you might need, could make all the difference.

Career change

Time to take a strategic perspective on your own life and career? You know by now what you can do – but what do you really want to do? The strategic thinking process – clarifying a vision, assessing the environment, creating and evaluating options, determining a robust strategy – is an immensely powerful method of helping you think through your own life and working objectives. This type of coaching can lead to entirely new horizons – but often you will stay in your current organisation but with an entirely new perspective and zest for your work.