In Adrian’s online self-assessment he highlighted opportunities to improve capability in his Finances and in his Personal Relationship. Specifically, the impacts of COVID-19 had placed serious pressure on his families’ finances as his partner had no work but their expenses had remained much the same. These financial pressures had, in turn, impacted their relationship.
Adrian and his partner had significant equity in their home and in their investments, however, the nature of their investments and lifestyle was that their monthly expenses were significant too. In our first coaching session, Adrian wrote a list of optional expenditure that could be immediately cut. We also focused on giving Adrian the awareness, skills and confidence to begin negotiating with his creditors – his bank, children’s private school, health insurance provider, utility providers and every other creditor to whom he owed money at that point in time or in the following six months. Adrian was able to secure notable discounts (and a number of deferrals) which when collated exceeded a month of Adrian’s take-home salary.
This outcome lead to an improvement in Adrian’s relationship with his partner. However, in our second coaching session, we took the time to discuss ways in which Adrian and his partner could rebuild their connection and also take advantage of the additional time that COVID-19 had allowed them to have together at home.
An area of capability improvement in Paul’s online self-assessment was Employment; specifically, the dynamics and interactions of his team members with each other and his leadership of them. Paul noted that there was confusion and debate in his team about their roles and that he needed assistance to provide greater role clarity to his team. Paul also identified several commonalities between his personal Values, Beliefs & Faith and those of his organisation.
In our first coaching session, we discussed Paul’s personal values. We also discussed his observation that they had a lot in common with those of his organisation. We discussed whether his team were sufficiently aware of the organisation’s values – they were not. We discussed Paul leading a session with his team where he would ask his team members to share their personal values, including Paul openly sharing his own; the objective being to find commonalities and differences between the team members’ personal values and those of the organisation. Paul felt that completing the session and discussing their observations could be the beginning of a more understanding, aligned and collaborative team dynamic.
In our coaching session, we also discussed his organisations’ strategy and business plan and how that was linked to his departments’ annual plans. In turn, we discussed the importance of each team member having a role description that explained not only the tasks and outputs for their role but also how these interact with other team members and contribute to departmental and business outcomes.
After completing her online self-assessment Rachelle wanted to focus on improving her capability in Sport, Recreation & Hobbies. Additionally, Rachelle felt that her current capability in Health & Wellness was impacting the rest of her life. Rachelle decided that in improving her capability in these Life Areas her goal would be to run Melbourne Marathon 2021.
Rachelle had only ever jogged occasionally and had done minimal exercise in recent months given the impacts of COVID-19. In our first coaching session, we spoke about developing a training plan; we also discussed that Rachelle had time on her side, given that the marathon was more than a year away. Rather than sprint out of the blocks and risk injury, we discussed getting her body moving again - taking small steps. Rachelle’s marathon training plan until the end of December 2020 is to walk for an hour four times per week. Rachelle’s plan considers her current capabilities and is achievable – she has enthusiastically commenced her journey.
David has a technical degree and a technical post graduate qualification and works in a functional role for a large multi-national. David is well respected for his technical skills and contribution. In David’s online self-assessment, he aspired to build further capability in his Employment by continuing his Education & Personal Development. Specifically, David wants a role in operations leading people.
In our first coaching session, David’s plan was to return to university and complete additional study so that he might be considered for an operations role. We discussed the skills, competencies and benefits that his proposed study would bring. We also discussed the skills and competencies required to lead people and compared these to David’s current skills and experiences. David concluded that continuing to obtain additional qualifications was not necessarily the best path forward. Instead, David’s new plan is to talk with his site leadership team about obtaining more project work in operations where he can utilise his technical skills to add value and at the same time build his operational skills by having regular contact and exposure to seasoned operations leaders and their teams.
