DILEMMA

This new leader entered her organization with a mountain of urgent, complex initiatives waiting for her. But she knew her first step had to be relational – she needed to build trust and rapport with her employees. Without that, she (and her initiatives) would fail. One problem: She had over 700 employees. While she excelled at building relationships one-on-one, with hundreds of employees and a limited amount of time, she knew she needed a new way to connect.

ENTER CHANGEFUSION

We partnered with this leader to design a customized coaching and communications support package. We focused on getting to know her leader deeply (her goals, values, personal story, etc.) and then designed organization-wide messages. We helped her map her communications to her core goals and principles, creating authentic connection at a group level and coaching her one-on-one in additional, behavior-based ways to build trust and rapport. We also brought together her leadership team to build alignment around key messages and develop a meaningful messages through the art of storytelling in organization sessions, lunch meetings, and monthly emails.

IMPACT

Through the coaching process, this leader came to understand and articulate herself more clearly and authentically. Her organization quickly noticed a difference in her communication style from past leaders and the importance she placed on authentic connection opened a new space for dialogue organization-wide. To top even that, by using storytelling, she (and her leadership team) quickly built alignment for their strategic priorities and even now, years later, they are still using the communication tactics we helped design. It’s impressive.

DILEMMA

This client had recently gone through a major restructuring, bringing thousands of people from across the country working on different issues together in one location. In an effort to built cohesion and establish new norms of collaboration, the client instituted a leadership program. The program was designed to mobilize leaders in working collectively to address the organization’s key challenges (i.e. budget pressures, strategic changes, base closings, etc.). Through a focus on innovation and collaboration, the leaders could model the way and create change that would ripple through the rest of the organization. But something was missing.

ENTER CHANGEFUSION

Our top leadership coaches joined the program, which is still ongoing, to give these leaders the extra support they needed. We visit the group six times a year and coach the leaders individually on their personal growth, individual approaches to change and challenge, and the ways in which they engage their teams and stakeholders. We also coach the group as a whole, helping them learn from one another and create a safe environment to give and receive feedback, try new behaviors, and have the type of creative conversations that lead to innovation (and fun). 

IMPACT

This program’s success has unlocked organization-wide potential to solve significant challenges and tough problems. We’re in our fifth year of coaching and we love watching the leaders transform as they work with us (and together). They already have the answers – we just facilitate the discovery.

The coaching has totally opened my eyes to a new way of leading. Rather than directing everyone and everything, I’ve learned to set aggressive expectations and focus my efforts on instilling accountability and coaching my team.

DILEMMA

This division in a federal agency had an influx of new leaders it wanted to see succeed. To do this, the client wanted each leader to have a customized development plan that honed in on individual areas for greater leadership growth and impact. This meant 20 executive leaders would need to go through a comprehensive 360 process, complete with individual action planning and one-on-one coaching. And it all needed to happen in only three months.

ENTER CHANGEFUSION

Three months? No problem. We partnered with this client to design and implement a custom 360 experience that would get its leaders high-impact feedback in a short period of time. We held a project kick-off with senior division leaders and the 20 participants to help them understand the process and its goals. From there, we administered our custom LI-360 and, through extensive one-on-one coaching, supported and challenged each leader to become his or her best through facing blind spots and developing new strengths.

IMPACT

This project was a high-impact three-month sprint. 20 leaders went into our “360 mirror” and emerged with a new understanding of their impact and the skills they needed to succeed. Armed with personalized development plans and a suite of support resources, they embarked with gusto on their new leadership journeys. They’re the cream of the crop.

ChangeFusion made the process easy and their coaches were extremely effective.

DILEMMA

This nonprofit client had both a highly skilled group of retired executive directors and a large, incoming group of new executive directors. With an immediate need to get its new directors up and running, this client realized it had the perfect natural resource, it only needed to figure out a way to tap it. If these retired executives could get trained in coaching skills 101, they could help unlock the next level of talent and results organization-wide.

ENTER CHANGEFUSION

We excel at equipping clients to equip themselves. Our best coaches came together to design a training program that would transfer top-notch coaching skills to this client’s retired executives. The intensive course focused on real-world coaching secrets, immediate application, and a strong commitment to supporting others in unleashing their potential.

IMPACT

The retired executives who participated in this program finished it with top skills in inquiry, deep listening, and relationship building. They also walked forward with a deep understanding of how to use the coaching process for lasting change. These retired leaders are now active coaches sharing their wisdom with others and helping them find their own.

I have a new understanding of what it means to be a coach. I’m equipped to really explore our Executive Directors’ goals, dilemmas, hopes, and fears over coffee rather than tell them what I think they need to do.

DILEMMA

This client had more leaders and managers requesting coaches than its internal staff could support. To complicate matters further, the growing group had extremely diverse needs. Everyone seemed to have a different level of education, technical expertise, and ability to lead or manage (not to mention diverse preferences in terms of the type of coach he or she worked with). This client wanted to give its leaders and managers the support they were requesting, but it didn’t know how.

ENTER CHANGEFUSION

Our cadre of leadership coaches presented the perfect next step. The ChangeFusion cadre has over 25 diverse coaches with varied backgrounds in education, experience, and coaching approaches. To match each leader or manager with the best coach, we designed a process of two-way dialogue and discovery between our coaches and potential coachees. Using this process, we built successful and trusting coach-coachee relationships early on and got each individual the unique type of support he or she was seeking.

IMPACT

The leaders and managers we are coaching in this organization have taken on new responsibilities, received promotions, and built stronger relationships with their peers, employees, and teams. Every year since deploying our cadre, this client has received personal requests for ChangeFusion coaches and we continue to renew our coaching engagements.