May 2009
Print this article
Click here to email this article to a friend
1
2
3
4
Table of Contents
In This Article:
For this month’s Critical Coaching Conversation Lauron Buys has used the current wave of retrenchments as a theme and the case study in the March 2009 Harvard Business Review as a source for some of the options; and for the technically-minded amongst us, an integration of David Rock’s “The Dance of Insight” with a simple GROW process.
by Lauron Buys
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mary rushed into Sipho’s coaching rooms, a little late as always. She had been appointed CEO of a large corporate in the automotive industry approximately eighteen months previously and had employed Sipho as her executive coach soon thereafter. She saw Sipho as someone to bounce things off in her new position in an industry she was less familiar with and in an environment in which she was finding it pretty lonely; Sipho saw his role as providing the catalyst to quality thinking, helping Mary to test her thinking at every point and challenging her to stretch her thinking.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Sipho, I was on the line to the Chairman following yesterday’s Board meeting when the message came out loud and clear that I have to do something to turn the business around. As you know, the automotive industry is upside down at the moment, to put it mildly.”
“So, what you had hoped wouldn’t transpire, has! I am sorry to hear that it has got that bad. Would you like to give me a summary of the current situation the business finds itself in?”
“Simply put, the various strategies we have been trying haven’t worked - our volumes are now down by a frightening 90%. Of course, these volumes are not out of line with current industry trends. We are fortunate, however, because we have considerable cash reserves, but one doesn’t want to use these to survive on.”
“Are there any of your current strategies that are bearing fruit or showing potential to do so?”
“I guess the only one is the general cost-cutting exercise that you have been aware of.” Mary went through the other strategies in place, showing that they were not showing the results that had been hoped for. “I have always been one to be careful on my spend but have believed that business really happens on the top line,” she continued. “It’s as if this basic philosophy is being proven unfounded in the current environment.”
1
2
3
4
|
