Case Studies
- Motivating & Aligning Your Teams
- Return- to-work Coaching
- Coaching for Performance
- Leadership Team Dynamics
Motivating & Aligning Your Teams
The Challenge
My client, a global research organisation, wanted to understand better why there was some demotivation, apathy and disengagement within a particular cross-section of employees. They wanted to understand the issues and encourage change. We were able to link everything back to what drives and excites the individuals to provide the ‘why’ for them to embrace change, helping unlock the potential of the teams.
This was a bespoke programme, with the purpose of starting with the future in mind, i.e. what needed to change, and what would this look and feel like, and then work back to where they were. We were then able to explore their common purpose and value their differences.
As well as determining the values and motivators that existed within these teams, the opportunity was used to understand whether perceptions differed from reality and how this might affect the building of relationships between the leaders and their teams.
The Approach
The project involved teams and leaders from four different global locations, and Phase 1 delivered:
- Six 90-minute workshops (online and in-person)
- A total of 51 attendees
- A mix of polls, surveys and open discussions in each workshop
- A feedback session with the senior team that commissioned the project
- Fully amalgamated and condensed data in an easy-to-understand format
To ensure the project ran smoothly, THL also ran the communications necessary to deliver the workshops and undertook diary management.
Phase Two
The results of Phase 1 were delivered as a half-day ‘manager playback’ workshop designed to:
- Present results of data gathered from workshops, show what was going well and where change was needed
- Enable group discussions and reflections on the results
- Identify and agree on the next steps
- Convey the expectations of the people managers and their teams
Notably, there was a shared understanding that the project would involve action and change at senior leadership, senior management and team levels throughout the organisation.
Phase Three
Designed as a feedback session for non-managers, this was a total of over 100 employees, across four time zones, including those who had attended the original workshops, those who couldn’t initially attend and the new starters. It was essential to be inclusive and aimed to:
- Provide data from the polls and surveys
- Use the workshop data to identify priority action points
- Understand the initial change initiatives for the next six months
- Identify one morale or performance action point that the team could take forward themselves
- Manage expectations concerning time, budgets and resources
- Reinforce the understanding of this as a joint initiative, where all parties had responsibility and accountability for taking action and achieving results
Phase Four
A half-day workshop for managers to discuss and identify the agreed change initiatives and address the people management development areas that had arisen. The workshop included discussions and group breakout sessions within a safe environment, designed to enable priority actions to be agreed upon, create a working group responsible for progression across all teams, agree on goals and action plans, and cover any related topics that arose.
The Data
The value in this project was in the unusual approach of eliciting the values held by leaders and team members and the performance against them, as well as the management’s perceptions of what the teams would say. The data was therefore an indicator of actual performance but also mood and feeling within the organisation. So, for example, if perceptions were held that the team thought poorly of management performance against a certain value, how would this impact on relationship building and the culture of the organisation?
Data was collected in the following categories:
- Personal values held by team members.
- Personal values held by managers.
- Motivators and demotivators, according to team members
- Motivators and demotivators according to members
- Team members’ views on management alignment with their personal values
- Perception of manager’s alignment with team personal values (the managers’ assumptions on what they would score)
Colour-coded charts made this mix of data easy to interpret and showed clearly where there was a mismatch between the managers’ perceptions and the actual thoughts and opinions of team members.
The Outcomes
The real success of this project was the variety of data collected from a relatively small number of sessions.
We presented the data in different ways to compare the opinions of the two groups, teams and managers, and also to show the difference between their perceptions and reality. This provided an important new angle on where change was needed.
Data collection and analysis covered:
- Employee satisfaction style survey questions, scored on a Likert scale
- Qualitative responses displayed as word clouds
- Graphs showing ‘top 5’ or ‘select 3’ data gathered from polls
- Charts comparing the opinions of the two groups
- Charts showing the comparison between opinions and perceptions across the groups
- A chart comparing team response, manager response and what managers expected the team response to be
- Presentation packs showing qualitative and quantitative data from each group
Tracey’s Thoughts
My client had specific needs, so a bespoke programme was the best fit. They needed an outside perspective and someone independent and impartial, so everyone involved had trust and, as such, could be open and honest. With this, we could fully understand the current challenges that needed addressing.
We dramatically increased organisational engagement by helping the individuals and their managers understand the team’s values and motivation.
This data also led to increased accountability as people started to understand how their perceptions or bias might be impacting on the way they analysed situations.
We were able to identify the behaviours and mindsets that were contributing to successfully, or detracting from, performance in this part of the business.
Often managers might think their only role is to lead the change but this data showed that they may be part of the problem and therefore need their own coaching to adopt new ways of working or thinking.
Clear and timely communication was essential as part of our role in managing this project, as it was multi-faceted and accountability could easily be lost if there was no focus on momentum and continuity.
Next Steps
In the event of people management surfacing as a priority action point, further one-day workshops could be run to explore anything from processes to skills in leadership. Group training or coaching is available for:
- Building trust
- Meaningful conversations
- Two-way feedback
- Managing difficult conversations
- How to get comfortable with change and ambiguity in the workplace
Client Testimonial
“There was a high level of apathy, low accountability, and various levels of disengagement across our tech and development teams. The managers reported that pay was the number one concern for employees. I wasn’t convinced this was the critical issue, so I asked Tracey’s advice. She proposed we run Team Alignment & Motivator Workshops to find out what motivated and demotivated our employees and what they’d had in previous roles they felt was missing here. Tracey created a psychologically safe, interactive space for employees across Technology & Product to participate – including four locations and time zones. Tracey found a lack of career progression, confusing job descriptions and silos were the real demotivators for our employees, with none of them mentioning pay! Tracey’s findings allowed us to focus on what was really important to our employees and potentially saved the organisation a significant amount of money.
Phase two involved sharing the initial findings with employees and asking them to vote on one project they wanted managers to focus on and one they would focus on for the first half of 2023 – driving accountability across all levels of the organisation, not just leadership. We now have two volunteer groups of employees and managers who are working on reviewing all job descriptions and career progression frameworks within Engineering & Technology Operations and introducing a peer-to-peer mentor/mentee network. Tracey’s guidance and input allowed us to be laser-focused on the issues that mattered to our employees, and we’re excited to see the outcomes come to fruition later this year.” Sarah Kane – Chief of Staff, Technology & Product
Return-to-work Coaching
The Challenge
Helping an employee return to work after a period of long-term sick leave can be stressful for both parties. Following a referral from the corporate insurers and Occupational Health, I worked with my client to overcome the damage caused by burnout and reinstate him in a long-term career.
As part of this work, we needed to address positive thinking, vision and goal setting, leadership style and expectations and self-confidence. All of this was set against the backdrop of the employer’s duty of care and with the end result of a sustainable return to work in mind.
The Approach
Coaching is an excellent way to help people overcome traumatic work-related experiences. When someone has been absent for a long period of time, the return-to-work journey is not straightforward. In fact, according to Occupational Health, after six months’ absence, a successful return to work is only 50% likely.
I created a bespoke programme for my client, using my experience and knowledge of the entire process from his personal planning needs, through onboarding and providing important coping mechanisms to avoid a repeat of his burnout.
The programme included:
- A strengths assessment to help us address his self-doubt and impostor syndrome
- Work on boundaries to help him distinguish between work and personal time
- Identification of risks and challenges with coaching to create positive thinking
- Work on his vision and goals with a deep dive into the culture, role and environment he needs to thrive in an organisation
- Mindfulness work to calm his busy mind
- Onboarding planning and preparation
- Coping mechanisms and tools to ensure a sustained recovery
Success criteria were identified as a successful, smooth transition back to work as a result of a sustained recovery.
Client Stories
My client was a senior executive in his organisation who, following the experience of burnout and breakdown had been on long-term sick leave for approximately a year. Understandably, the company’s insurers and Occupational Health were keen to see him return to work and he had also indicated he now felt strong enough to work on achieving this.
Occupational Health referred the coaching needed to achieve the desired outcome to THL Coaching.
My client had already received considerable counselling to repair his emotional state and now needed to work on his feeling in the context of returning to full-time work.
We worked together over a series of sessions to explore both his personal brand – who he wanted to be when he showed up to work – and the environment and conditions he would need in order to thrive in a role. We worked on the types of leaders he admired, what traits he felt were important and ensured he had clarity on the goals he would commit to in order to achieve a two-year vision.
My aims were to facilitate a smooth transition and therefore facilitate a sustained return having addressed underlying issues and equipped my client with the tools and mindset he needed to meet future challenges.
Tracey’s Thoughts
Coaching is not always the first solution considered when people have suffered from the emotional damage caused by burnout.
Burnout can come from work or personal circumstances but isn’t a medical diagnosis. Although we know that the effects of stress and overwhelm are much better understood, they are still very individual and often not addressed until it is too late.
Being able to work with my client on a fully bespoke programme meant I could support him for his entire return-to-work journey. Coaching was the best approach because it enabled him to identify, understand and resolve his issues in a safe and supportive environment.
He is now in a new, senior role with an exciting new business. He feels more objective about his career, more focused, happier and more content. He talks positively about work and life in general.
Occupational Health and business insurers can benefit from working with coaches to ensure the costs and disruption associated with long-term absence are mitigated as swiftly and effectively as possible.
Sustained recovery is key to ensure the individual is protected and they and the business can continue to thrive.
Client Testimonial
“Life felt chaotic at the start of the programme. I now feel much calmer, I am clear on my strengths and my leadership style and attributes. I understand what is important to me and how my needs can be met while maintaining a sustainable professional life, making sure I don’t fall back into my old habits.
The coaching programme helped me realise what was important to me in my working life, namely that in order to stay motivated, successful, healthy and happy, I need to be part of a diverse team, and that a sense of belonging is crucial to me.
Tracey helped me identify the culture I need in order to thrive: these insights helped me understand why I had not flourished in some of my previous roles. I established what I wanted my personal brand to be, i.e. what I wanted people to say about me when I left the room, and the strategies and actions I needed to put in place to create this.”
Coaching for Performance
The Challenge
Coaching for performance is often needed when an individual is new to an organisation, returning from a career break or by those who have been promoted into a new role. It is also useful to address individual performance requirements as and when they arise.
In some cases, organisations like to pre-empt these situations, for example, when succession planning, by arranging some coaching before people take on new roles.
Whether an individual is new to an organisation or just to their latest role, there is always a transition period that may need facilitating to enable them to perform to the best of their capability. Changes, promotions, or skills gaps can provoke feelings of impostor syndrome, a lack of self-confidence, or other performance-related issues that need to be supported and resolved.
The Approach
My work in this area of coaching is either carried out with an individual who is struggling, or via an organisation that wants to offer individual staff members coaching in relation to development needs, which may have been identified through their review process for example. This programme, therefore, supports ongoing needs, as well as those of new hires, those recently promoted, or employees returning from a career break or long-term sick leave.
Outcomes can vary but often include:
- working to align an individual’s and organisation’s values and culture
- understanding risks or challenges and creating coping mechanisms to navigate these
- discussing and building confidence, self-belief, and a positive mindset
- working on the relationship with change and its impact
- addressing career goals and creating a longer-term focus
- dealing with imposter syndrome, how it shows up and how to reduce its impact; and
- identifying the individual’s use of control, plus the ability to delegate and avoid burnout
A typical programme includes:
- Nine 60-minute coaching sessions delivered fortnightly (for 3 months) and monthly (for 3 months) over a total six-month period
- Weekly accountability check-ins
- Access to the weekly Productivity Group which helps combat procrastination
- Two Capability and Competence assessments to include identifying and developing strengths
- Two 30-minute sponsor sessions if required
Client Stories
Client A, was a Senior Lawyer who felt trapped in her role and was experiencing low self-esteem and confidence, which left her convinced no other employer would want her. By following the programme, Tracey worked with her to rebuild her confidence and see things from a positive perspective. She applied for three new roles as a result and was offered two. She reflected that ‘meeting Tracey has changed things dramatically for me, I feel positive, confident and excited about my future.’ She now has a successful new role in a different organisation and describes herself as ‘never been happier.’
Client B was an organisation that had realised one of its recently promoted managers was struggling in his new role. They engaged Tracey to deliver the Coaching for Performance programme for this senior technical manager. As a result, she identified that the individual felt as though he was ‘acting’ at being a senior manager, rather than it being a reality. He couldn’t bring himself to speak at Senior Management meetings (SMT), even though he was the expert in the room and knew the right solution to a challenge.
Following Tracey’s work, he developed an understanding of his strengths and his development needs. As a result, his confidence improved and he has since begun chairing the SMT. The organisation reported that he is a more effective and efficient contributor who can take a more strategic approach to his work.
Tracey’s Thoughts
At times of high pressure, people can react in unexpected ways, so the Coaching for Performance programme enables them to explore their feelings and the impact on their performance, interaction, and delivery and take action on any highlighted areas of development.
Exercises might include exploring what a visionary role model might look like, for example, one that inspires and empowers them to deliver high standards of excellence. We can also refine skills such as being able to express ideas with gravitas and conviction to influence and engage their teams. Other areas that can be covered are personal resilience and leadership and decision-making styles.
I particularly like the scope the programme affords to really tailor it to the individual’s needs, and that of the organisation, if they are sponsoring the coaching. It’s highly rewarding to see people stepping into their increased responsibility and overcoming challenges that have directly impacted their ability to perform their role.
Leadership Team Dynamics
The Challenge
The senior leadership tech team are going through a considerable global restructure. They have rapidly moved from start-up to scale-up and achieved this during the challenges of the pandemic. They recognised the need to gain a better understanding of their interactions and how they collectively think, deliver and lead in order to create a more client-focused approach. They want to transition from this change period into a more collaborative style of leadership to help build trust and engagement across the wider organisation.
The Approach
I ran a multi-phased programme that started by identifying the areas where they needed to shift focus across 19 of their mid to senior tech managers. We explored their strengths and how to develop these further, as well as what happens to these when they are under pressure both as individuals and as a group. They were able to understand the impact of these within their interactions, evaluate their motivators and improve their connections with their people. The next phase examined the team dynamics at leadership level. I provided a self-assessment framework for the nine leaders to identify what skills, attributes and attitudes they found important for effective leadership and facilitated a discussion on their perception of good leadership.
The following phase supported the restructured leadership group by running a team insights programme to encourage a collaborative workplace where group members deliver results collectively by performing to their own strengths. The key purpose was for the group to understand each other’s styles and how they both complemented and challenged each other and to create a dialogue on the challenges to find ways to work through these that created results that were good for the department, the organisation, and its clients.
The current phase looks at the values and drivers for 51 engineers across Mumbai, Shanghai, New York and London. We’ve run six workshops to identify what motivates the teams so that the leadership can create strategies to support the workforce, create higher engagement and reduce attrition, which is key in this current market.
Client Story
Much of the Senior Leadership Team, as well as the teams themselves, joined the organisation during the COVID lockdowns. This meant they hadn’t met or collaborated in person and therefore hadn’t established a good enough team rapport. So they asked me to deliver a series of programmes across the management and senior leadership teams in London, New York and Asia. The purpose at the SLT level was to empower everyone to deliver high standards of excellence and lead in an inspirational way.
They wanted to raise self-awareness on how they operated, at both SLT and management levels. They realised that they needed a better understanding of each other in order to support the delivery and development of the business. The key objective was to understand individual strengths and leadership styles and how they complimented and challenged each other. They were experiencing a disconnect between their engineering and sales teams which showed them they needed to communicate better, and they felt my programmes facilitated this.
As a result of THL’s programme, their leadership group could confidently consider each manager’s role, and shift responsibilities where necessary to ensure they all worked to their individual strengths and understood those of their peers. Likewise, the SLT now have a good understanding of how to inspire teams and win people’s cooperation. Senior leaders are reported as being more able to express ideas with gravitas and conviction, to influence, and engage the whole workforce. As a result, cooperation has increased, and there is a greater insight into the challenges they face, as well as how to support and resolve them.
Tracey’s Thoughts
Raising internal awareness in this way leverages the talents of everyone in the team, which results in greater progress and innovation. The programmes I ran, and am continuing to run, for this client, support a people-centric focus and ensure a culture of psychological safety where everyone has a voice and feels heard and supported.
Ultimately, building a culture of collaboration will have far-reaching benefits for the group and each individual within it, helping build trust and engagement across the wider organisation, and they are now beginning to see far less attrition at the senior levels.
What My Clients Say:
We are more supportive in the group, as a direct consequence of having deeper insights into our own personal drivers and shared quantifiable abilities, and how these complement one another within the team structure.
This trusted collaboration is a powerful behaviour change that is clearly evident and displayed in daily work, bringing positive impact alongside our core values.
Tracey’s human approach and methodology, based around providing insights into individual core skills to build on the team strength, has been a great fit for our needs and focused on how we work with everyone across the teams.” ~ Senior Leader – Global Investment Research
Feedback from a similar programme run for an Equity Partner group:
“Tracey has recently facilitated a strengths assessment for our Partnership. This was a hugely insightful programme led by Tracey for ten business owners moving towards a new governance structure.
Tracey allowed each of us to understand our individual strengths, characteristics, and business behaviours. Tracey is a natural communicator and sensitively moved us all through the process so that we can ensure strength in our leadership.
Tracey has an exceptional ability to assess and develop an individual’s strengths and I would not hesitate in recommending her”. – Emma Thompson. Head of Employment. Thackray Williams LLP
If you are interested in finding out more about these programmes, please get in touch by emailing tracey@thlcoaching.com or clicking the button below to book a 30 minute call.