High Performing V’s High Functioning, Career Professional – Brief Case Study
(*shared with permission)
The other day I finished working with an individual client. 10 sessions across 11 months. She was great to work with. Smart, expressive, determined, creative, ambitious and don’t forget funny. A great sense of humour. She’d got what she wanted and was ready to move on. This is the big picture purpose of coaching.
I asked her for feedback:
Things I could’ve done differently?
- Following up after longer breaks post sessions. “Do you want to book in again?”
- References to other resources >> for additional learning, reflection & stability of concepts covered in session
Things I did that helped?
- Including Humour
- Pushing her questions to me, back to her, “making her think”.
- Engaging in the emotional moment with her, whatever it was: joy, confusion, doubt, celebration etc.
- Referencing to previous professional experiences and examples I’d had (shared with anonymity of course, and assured her she wasn’t alone with her challenge)
- Knowledge and use of theoretical models and methods to the madness
- Podcast referrals
Observations of working with this client:
The interesting with Mirerva, was not only her shining uniqueness as a person and client, but how the sessions played out. In some ways there was rarely an obvious continuity between session content and direction. It seemed to me, that so often each session was it’s own moment in time where the client would deal with what was most important to her right then. In some ways she seemed to be extremely present with what she chose to address in each session. We set “grand masterplans” and overall strategy but each session seemed to become its own focal point and solo project. There were times I was wondering if I needed to find or understand a pattern in all of it, but then I would just return to my coach training principle of working to the client’s agenda. If she was happy, so was I. And she was!
Her words:
I came with the intention that coaching was going to lazily answer my problems. I didn’t realise it at the time, but Scott was teaching me to unlock and discover the answers and confidence that I already had within myself, rather than walk away with the play book. Working with Scott has built my emotional capacity and added to my tool kit to approach professional and personal hurdles, with tenacity. Together we enabled the skill to articulate, and then translate, my own story with integrity and uniqueness. Importantly, to trust myself first. Through this process I have grown significantly more resilient, seen my professional performance improve and in turn discovered that I’m the kind of person I’d want to have a beer at the pub with. Scott uses expert techniques but adds his own flare and humour to create a coaching relationship that challenged me. He listens, feeds back and then works with you to navigate solutions that are intrinsically your own. I enjoyed his openness and trustworthiness, but importantly that he didn’t judge or deny any approach to being solutions orientated. We just got it done.
Mirerva Holmes
Executive Manager, Commercial
National Trust of Australia
Mirerva it was a pleasure. Thank you.