Individual Coaching Growing the Company The Challenge: A Director had started with a company in its infancy. He helped the company ramp up by building an HR department from scratch including recruiting, systems, benefits, compensation, and leadership development. As often happens in smaller companies, he also set up events: employee meetings; awards; employee volunteer activities in the community. His relationships with line management and employees were in general, very good. As the company grew, however, his superiors felt a more strategic, rather than tactical, view was needed but were not sure how to approach such a valued long-term employee. Their question: do we develop or replace this long-term employee or restructure the position? The Solution: He completed a 360° Leadership Effectiveness Assessment, Role Assessment, Individual Directions Inventory and Conflict Style Assessment. It became clear through discussions, that the individual needed to strengthen his strategic approach to HR as well as HR technical competence. The individual also recognized his tendency to avoid conflict to keep everyone happy. The Results: The individual accepted the challenge to develop himself. This included pushing back with senior leadership and holding staff more accountable for results. As time progressed, because of the large volume of work the Director was handling due to growth, it became evident that he was not going to be able to gain the skills needed in a short enough period of time. A decision was made to restructure the position temporarily, along with several other functions, so that the immediate strategic needs would be met by the individual's new boss and that the individual could continue to make contributions in other areas of HR with an increased focus on employee development. This would give the Director more time to develop the strategic orientation. |