Günter Umbach: Turning Science into Sales
A major pharmaceutical company had a wealth of scientific data resulting from its clinical trials involving a billion euro cardiovascular brand. We put the existing scientific data to work by optimizing the marketing and medical marketing strategy. Capitalizing on the data we master-minded an innovative communication campaign.
The result: Product revenue increased by approximately 20 percent.

Michelle Clarke: Coaching 1
Kevin, 35, the Operations Exeutive of an international supply chain organization contacted me regarding executive coaching as part of his personal development plan. A goal-driven high achiever, his career had been a record of accelerated promotions. What he aspired to most was a seat on the organizational board but his efforts seemed thwarted by an old-economy culture which he felt judged his innovative leadership style as youthful and risqué. Kevin wanted a coach to help him to develop a broader repertoire of leadership skills and to enhance and more effectively promote his authentic leadership. He wanted to gain the trust of the board through demonstrating maturity coupled with innovation.  By the end of the 6-month coaching intervention Kevin was a regular stand-in at board meetings with board members engaging him to share his ideas.  Feedback from his team suggested a new depth of respect for his situational leadership, passion and authenticity. Six months after termination of the coaching intervention Kevin telephoned me to share that he had been promoted to full board member. 

Michelle Clarke: Coaching 2
When I met, Johan, 54, a Senior IT Professional at a Financial Services multi-national, he was frustrated and self-doubting.  For several months prior to our meeting, Johan had been an unwilling key player in an unavoidable organisation conflict with his senior manager. Johan wanted to re-assess his values, strengths and leadership skills.  He also wanted to re-engineer his brand and reputation within the organization. Most importantly, he wanted to re-build important relationships with the executive team.  As a long-time Marshal Arts Master and mentor to young upcoming karate students, Johan and I looked to explore his eastern wisdom and developed ways to bring this respectful philosophy into his workspace. Mid-way through our coaching intervention Johan was given an affirmation of his efforts - the department re-structured placing him back into a pivotal leadership role. At the end of our time together, Johan’s team was performing to a very high level (like “intelligent warriors”, the feedback said), and his reputation as a wise and knowledgeable leader was again intact.   

Michelle Clarke: Coaching 3
Zerina, 46, the Head of Well-Being for a large TeleCommunications concern, had a history of service excellence behind her. Her staff and colleagues had always respected her commitment to her work.  So it came as shock to her when her Senior manager suggested that she did not appear 100% committed. She confessed to me at our first meeting that not only was she was dealing with and largely preoccupied with challenges in her personal life, but also under pressure to complete her MBA.  She knew she had  withdrawn her focus from work, hoping that it would all just ‘carry on as usual’.  Zerina wanted a coach to help her to gain perspective, re-assess her values and prioritize her time. She wanted to learn to effectively delegate – not only professionally but also personally – empowering others to help her. At the end of our coaching intervention, Zerina offered me the following feedback:

“I am calmer.  I am enthusiastic again and this is such a joy!  It has been self-empowering to re-assess myself and my world.  I recognise my strengths and I see the way to bring these to the fore to re-ignite my consistent performance.”

James Dillon:  Development Coaching
I coached the Financial Director of a holding company with the objective of optimizing and enhancing the qualities of management and leadership of the Financial Director, accompanying him to integrate and to train young graduates coming from major business schools. His goal was to provide them with the keys for their future career and assign them to teams they would be most suited for.

I worked on getting the Financial Director to grasp the behavior and expectations of his young recruits. He gained more flexibility in his style of management and his way of communicating. He learned how to share his know-how and experience more effectively, providing examples based on his own experience. Working closely with them, he was able to develop a fiscal advisory platform and an interactive website for the subsidiaries. As a result of our work together, the Director knew how to motivate his new recruits to go through their integration process. There was a dynamic learning climate as they discovered all of the opportunities for their career that the corporate group could offer them. He also was able to position his young employees as a center of competence for the subsidiaries, which in turn reinforced the relationship between his department and his counterparts in these companies owned by the holding.

James Dillon:  Problem Solving Coaching

I coached the Director for industrial investments, also responsible for Quality Programs worldwide who had to convince the international sites to invest in programs to change their methods or to upgrade their quality. Yet he did not have direct decision-making power over his local counterparts. He found it was difficult to get these operational counterparts to adhere to his recommendations and to mobilize them to make changes and investments that had become imperative for continuing the activity. The objective was to confirm the Director in his role and his mission concerning subsidiaries. During the coaching mission, the Director became aware that his credibility was based on how well he could create a dialogue with his local managers. He needed to be far more participative in his approach. He discovered that he had a tendency to take over and decide for others, which met with resistance. He understood that he had to do more lobbying at all levels in the corporation, which he called “pre-sales”. In meetings, he had to be able to turn the tables in his favor. He reflected on communication tactics, on his behavior and his intercultural awareness to be able to listen more intently, to ask probing questions and to respond to objections with solid examples.

A production failure occurred during the coaching mission. It was costing the company a lot of money. The Director was able to work closely with the local manager and set up a process to solve the issue successfully with five steps: 1) Enlarge  the  investigation  to  find the root cause of the  problem, 2) Involve the whole  team of engineers on site,  3) Call on outside specialists, 4)Discover and deploy innovative solutions, 5) Coordinate communication, both during the incident and the follow-up.