I’m stuck

Time for another personal story, one that inspired me to explore Executive Coaching as a career path, and definitely motivated me to be a source of support for individuals’ midway through their careers and not knowing where to turn (still motivates me today in fact).

Picture the scene, I’m 31, leading the day-to-day operations of an in-country supply chain for a global pharmaceutical company. The team and I have had a productive year. We’ve managed medicines supply effectively (best metrics ever seen). We’ve saved over £5m through effective stock management (never before seen numbers). I personally identified a life-threatening supply problem and led a cross-party collaboration between the company, world-leading cancer specialists and the national health body to ensure patients health, wellbeing and welfare were effectively managed through this supply challenge, resulting in 2000 people being saved from dying. Not a bad year you might think, especially as this was all outperforming objectives.

Annual performance review comes round, where I’m measured as above-, at- or below- standard performance over a variety of categories. Overall, it’s decided I’m at standard in my performance.

Here came the interesting part which provided the spark for nearly a decade of curiosity about what makes people thrive.

The qualitative feedback detailed my attention to detail, leadership of others and perseverance to develop meaningful working relationships as noted strengths.

However, the developmental feedback was “keep doing what you’re doing.”

I remember my shock and thirst for more details. What in particular are you wanting me to do more of? Where do I need to develop in your eyes? How do I need to develop? Why have I got an ‘at standard’ performance rating and no specified development areas?

It was a particularly frustrating time, and it fuelled my interest in coaching people experiencing a similar point of incongruence in themselves.

My explorations have taught me to support individuals to objectively raise awareness to the internal barometers of performance people can put in place. This enables individuals to appreciate themselves more highly, rather than leaning heavily on the need for external validation in their work.

I’ve also tuned up peoples’ capacity to move beyond the emotion they feel in a moment of internal conflict. Those emotions tend to cloud judgment, inhibit rational thinking and navigate the emotion in a helpful way.

For me, that feedback was one of the most catalysing insights I’ve ever received, and is certainly still helping me today. I notice I am never satisfied with the moments I coach in. I’m always reflecting on each interaction, noticing what impact I had both positively and negatively. I’m always working to be fully present with each coachee in each coaching interaction, so I meet them where they are at and ensure that any assumptions are minimised and challenged.

So thank you Mr Director for that feedback. You helped me in more ways than you will ever know.

Graham