As we move through the phases of the COVID-19 pandemic and into a new state of normal, we will need to support key talent through constant transition and adaptation, to engage and motivate them and help them identify new ways of thinking. Carol Williams Donahue, Associate Coach at OEC, reports:
As coaching professionals we have worked with numerous clients over the years to discover and unleash their unique brilliance. This has meant partnering as coaches with individuals and teams to negotiate significant change – their response to it, their barriers, their limiting beliefs and self-doubts, alongside (and balanced with) the acknowledgment and celebration of their exciting aspirational visions on possibilities and opportunities.
The one fundamental key in all these coaching conversations and team interventions is discovering the right balance, the right equation for the individual, the leader or the team to get to their place of success, of personal achievement, and on towards continuing stretch and growth.
Investing in yourself and your key talent during a period of change and uncertainty has always been a good call. We have been working with clients throughout this period of global crisis, with the unprecedented speed of change and the activation of an almost beyond-human call to action- especially in our NHS – and we have seen spectacular results in people breaking into new realms of possibility thinking.
With 2020 we have learnt and experienced, in the most dramatic way, that nothing is certain, we are all vulnerable and we need to really stretch and challenge ourselves in a way we have never had to before. We are having to find the solutions and the best ways to steer through this crisis and re-set and re-calibrate our society, both economically and socially
As the world moves into the next phase of this ‘new normal’ and business leaders assess the new landscape, re-visioning their business models to adjust to new and different client demands, product needs, as well as new ways of conducting business and working, one of the key challenges will be the changes needed to talent and resource identification, development and management. The skills and behaviours needed to navigate through the ongoing storm and the new environment it will create, are changing.
For some time now leadership and management development have focused on the importance of adaptability, agility, speed to execution and doing more with less. Many have also incorporated wellbeing and resilience into the mix, alongside ethical, diversity and inclusion, and green imperatives. All of this will continue to be key as leaders redefine the new culture of success and how to operate dynamically and respond to the uncertain and different future. Of increasing significance will be to acknowledge and support key talent through constant transition and adaptation, to engage and motivate them, and help them identify new ways of thinking about what they do, how they do things and get things done.
We are all in the same storm, albeit in different boats, and we need the best of everyone to protect our futures. We need everyone’s brilliance.
Carol Williams Donahue joined us as an Associate following a thirty-year career in the Financial Services sector. In her various senior roles she drove extensive leadership development and talent initiatives, with a particular focus on emerging leaders and supporting women in leadership. She is an accredited coach with a passion for facilitating people through key transitions. Read more about Carol and the rest of the OEC team here
