From Stuck... to Confident     and Focussed

Client Challenge

This middle manager and big data professional was anxious to make a career change, but felt unclear about what that next move should be. With a math degree and MBA, she didn’t lack smarts and ambition. In fact, she had only good reviews from her current major bank employer. But she didn’t think that a large bureaucratic organization was the right place for her, and she had a lot more to give than what was being asked of her. So how to get unstuck, and design and execute a road map forward, including her right positioning in the market?

Q Approach

A career coaching approach was taken, beginning with a kick off session that allowed the client to reflect on her life and career so far, then, with Margaret’s support, get specific about what goals she wanted for herself.

Margaret introduced her proprietary personal brand framework, beginning with the elements of an individual’s unique identity, e.g. purpose, strengths, values, personality, etc. In parallel, the coaching centred on topics such as vulnerability, inner critic and inner ally, self-care and self-management, and more.

As the client became more confident and grounded, the twice-monthly coaching turned to visioning her future and next role, and developing the rest of her brand, i.e. target audiences, value proposition, key messaging and communication vehicles.

She completed a number of homework exercises including a survey with peers, friends and family about what they appreciated most about her and what differentiated her. As she discovered, it’s often our greatest strengths that we can take for granted and under-sell.

She also came to understand that corporate culture would be the most important filter as she searched for her new organization. So informational interviews became a priority to-do followed by debriefs with her coach.

At completion, Margaret and the client met to celebrate all that had been learned and determine what the client most wanted to hang onto going forward. 

The Results

For this client, the greatest result was learning to overcome barriers that she'd created herself - allowing her to courageously and confidently step into a new role and organization. 

She got to know herself better, including the unique and rich collection of strengths, competencies and values that defined her personal brand - and made her even more attractive to a future employer.