Success after success - and counting.

These real-life Executive Coaching and Leadership Development case examples will inform you about our successful client work and give you an idea of our depth of experience.

Case 1: Lead Strategy Through Excellent Relationships

Case 2: Build a Strong culture to enhance revenue

Case 3: ACQUIRE SENIOR-LEVEL POLITICAL SAVVY

Case 4: BROADEN FROM FUNCTIONAL TO SENIOR LEADER

Case 5: FOSTER INNOVATION

Please ask us for more examples, in any of our many capability areas.

You can reach us at:

(917) 968-1850

info@abramsandassociatesllc.com

Background: Margo was recently appointed to a VP-level role at her financial services firm.  Her 60+ staff members needed to create and maintain transformational new strategic initiatives and alliances with key external partners. A highly competent, practical former clinician, Margo strongly valued vision, hard work, and achieving concrete results for her organization. These strengths led her to focus on external relationships and strategy rather than needed senior internal relationship-building, political savvy and improving her team’s cohesion and morale. Uncertainty and/or negative perceptions around Margo’s leadership impaired others’ view of her potential for senior leadership, and her confirmation as a VP.

Goal Setting: After various assessments were completed and her summary report delivered, Margo’s specific three (3) key competency focus areas were identified as: 1) Stronger executive presence internally, 2) building a high-performing team, and 3) even more effectively influencing her networks.

Coaching Session Learning: Margo and her AALLC coach met regularly to discuss her hottest issues, questions, successes and challenges in these 3 areas.  She identified new behavioral strategies to try between sessions, based on our in-depth discussion about actual on-the-job interactions/incidents; co-created suggestions of new approaches for her to take in these situations; and the coach's additional observations, just-in-time leadership material, and spontaneous role-playing around new strategies to implement. With repeated, in-depth exploration of her priorities, successes and “blind spots”, this client developed new beliefs and practical, specific strategies to try.  She chose more effective approaches that served to better promote effective team collaboration, team perceptions of her advocacy and caring as a leader, and better awareness of the strength of her contributions to the organization, as a leader. She came to understand that for a leader, relationships are as important as tasks, and she developed various ways to maintain this focus in actual interactions.

Evaluation, Results, and Reinforcement: As a result of her sustained efforts, her working relationships with both senior leadership and her team improved, as did favorable perceptions of her leadership contributions by senior leaders. Notable results included maintaining positive working relationships with two difficult internal peers, while avoiding the kinds of negative situations that used to “derail” her in the past. She created new, positive, teaming relationships with others that enhanced the organization’s contracting with a variety of new external partners. As just one case in point, this leader created and maintained a positive working relationship with one difficult, resistant, external alliance partner, and then successfully re-negotiated a contract with that partner which resulted in over $2 million savings to her organization.

Background: Jeff, the brilliant President of a recently-acquired, $800 million revenue, global engineering firm had never worked anywhere else in his career. The founders of his subsidiary had promoted him up through the ranks. Unfortunately, they also role-modeled an “old-school” command-and-control form of leadership that Jeff unthinkingly perpetuated – until his new global leadership let him know that as a leader, he was failing, with both his own staff and his global colleagues.

Goal-Setting: After various assessments were completed and his summary report delivered, Jeff’s specific three (3) key competency focus areas were identified: 1) Improving his ability to empower his team, 2)  building effective relationships with his local and global colleagues, and 3) communicating more openly.

Coaching Session Learning: Over the course of Jeff’s coaching sessions, he reviewed the various real-time team and global colleague situations that were occurring and planned. From his feedback and through these conversations, Jeff quickly realized ways in which he could be more effective as a leader, and acted on it. For example, instead of responding himself, he started steering important, even urgent decisions and requests to his staff, and supported their decisions. He hired and improved the quality of key staff, and began staff meetings that featured broader communication.  He also began developing his collegial relationships world-wide.

Evaluation, Results, and Reinforcement: As a result of Jeff’s new actions, he saw quick and significant results.  His working relationships with his staff greatly improved, as did his trust in them. He was able to travel globally for three weeks without negative operational impact back home – which he had never foreseen as possible before the start of coaching. In addition to freeing up his time to focus on global sales, his new collegial proactivity lead his inclusion and pivotal role on a global priority-setting committee, as well as new multi-million dollar sales efforts for his subsidiary in a priorly-dormant global region.

Background: During a reorganization, Bridget was promoted during our coaching engagement to become a Senior VP in her national retail organization. She now managed a $900 million portfolio of SKUs for the company and had to transition rapidly into her new, significantly more senior role over two formerly separate areas. Bridget’s strengths included retail savvy, building direct team and senior relationships, pragmatism, and strategic thinking. She had always built strong, effective commercial teams in the past, and enjoyed her President’s personal confidence and support. Her new role’s challenges were to broaden her network with her SVP peers; negotiate the “politics” at her more visible, senior level; and successfully retain a resentful senior direct report who believed that she should have gotten Bridget’s job.

Goal Setting: After various assessments were completed and her summary report delivered, Bridget’s specific three (3) key competency focus areas were identified as: 1) Building her peer network, 2) exerting influence across and above in the organization, and 3) increasing her political savvy.

Coaching Session Learning: Given the newness of this level of responsibility, visibility, and staff span, Bridget and her AALLC coach explored and clarified her understanding of key communication content, methods, stakeholder inclusion and other needs of senior level roles. They actively discussed the impact that various actions would have on Bridget’s key stakeholders, which lead her to refine her choices of actions. These conversations also led Bridget to better understand what was now, and what was no longer, appropriate for her to do or say in her role, and to adopt more effective behaviors for her new level. In addition, Bridget exerted significant effort to exhibit patience and self-control with her new senior-level direct report, giving that person clear direction, yet time and support, as she adjusted to her new career path.

Evaluation, Results, and Reinforcement: After 6 months, Bridget’s two former divisions were successfully merged into one collaborative, successful team. In addition to financial success, she successfully turned around and retained the talents of her senior direct report. Bridget has remained in high regard by the President and was slated for expanded future responsibility in the company.

Background: Barry had served as regional Deputy General Counsel for quite a few years at his global CPG. He had been provisionally named the General Counsel’s successor, but neither the North American senior leadership team nor his functional global leader believed Barry was ready to assume a role as head of the function. The goal of coaching was to help him step up his level so that he could confidently assume the role, or remove him from consideration for it.

Goal-Setting: After various assessments were completed and Barry’s summary report delivered, his specific three (3) key competency focus areas were identified as: 1) Strengthening his executive presence, 2) deepening his “customer service” mentality, and 3) communicating clearly about his desire for the General Counsel role.

Coaching Session Learning: Barry and his AALLC coach explored his inner hesitations about taking the senior role, which helped him discover and focus on his inner commitment and confidence to declare his unequivocal desire for the role. Through their discussions, Barry also learned about the mindset and beliefs he needed to have, to begin acting more like a senior leadership team member, rather than a functional advisor. This meant that he had to assume both the mindset of a functional head, but more often, take the mindset of a general business owner, on the same footing as other C-level officers. Barry expanded his participation to offer general marketing, financial, and other insights appropriate to an experienced leader, as well as those relevant to his functional expertise. He also successfully cultivated new, greater visibility and interchange with his global functional head.

Evaluation, Results, and Reinforcement: By the end of coaching, Barry had clearly elevated perceptions of himself as a senior leader. Barry demonstrated his new competencies in a sustained way over time, such that when the General Counsel retired as planned, Barry was delighted to be named General Counsel and a full member of the senior leadership team in his place.

Background: The client, Steve, was recently promoted to Senior Director in Research and Development at a pharmaceutical company. His new role on the senior leadership team required him to lead innovation and develop long-range strategic initiatives. His primary development needs were to create and lead innovation in his own area; develop strategic plans for his function; and contribute to the organization’s strategic planning overall.

Goal-Setting: Assessments confirmed that while Steve was very strong operationally, he needed to develop innovation and strategic skills to be a better overall leader. He had a strong track record with efficient operational management: He excelled at executing tasks and initiatives, and providing excellent service to internal customers. However, his industry demanded more, and his leadership recognized that his function would need to speed up the rate at which they invented and implemented new products and services to help the company stay competitive.

Coaching Session Learning: Steve and his AALLC coach identified specific actions that he could take to foster innovation, such as developing new ways for his department to function and helping him stimulate and reinforce creative thinking among his staff. Steve’s own assumptions were challenged, such as that he needed to have an immediate answer for all questions, and that experiencing uncertainty was “unprofessional”. His AALLC coach also introduced him to innovative thinking patterns, including analogies, altering structures and sequences, and changing perspectives. He practiced using these innovative thinking patterns to address the strategic opportunities in his work environment and role-played ways to ask his staff members to employ these techniques also.

Evaluation, Results, and Reinforcement: During and after coaching, Steve successfully led his department in implementing several work process innovations, with the result of shortening their average process time from six to four weeks. He also led a global collaborative innovation project with the department’s international counterparts, that resulted in shortening drug development time by 20%. His leadership also noted his new, active, visible contributions to the senior leadership team’s strategic thinking.