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Case Study:
From Industry Expert to Creating Her Own Global Business
The Situation:
A senior Leased Assets Manager (TK) for a prominent global bank was suddenly laid off when the bank decided to exit the business. She was stunned since, less than a year earlier, the bank had aggressively recruited her to join the management team launching this new division. The experience triggered her to reassess her career and life priorities.
She realized that she had worked hard and sacrificed much for the sake of the corporate agenda, giving her loyalty and talents unconditionally. She now felt, in a very personal way, the high risk of working in a system where others were in control of the game. What was tolerable in the early years of her career now seemed less so. At the same time, given her skills and the reputation she had built over many years as one of the leading authorities in the industry, TK was quickly recruited by one of the top companies in the world - an opportunity that many of her colleagues fully expected her to take.
The Coaching Process:
TK entered the transitions coaching process with a real dilemma. Should she accept the very attractive job offer on the table or should she take this occasion to launch her own business and take direct responsibility for her own future? Such a transition held a great deal of appeal and also seemed fraught with peril. Working with Don Arnoudse, she clarified her core commitments and developed a success scorecard covering all the key roles in her life. She asked herself, what do I really want to do with my life…and my work… now?
Her answer emerged with great clarity: start her own consultancy to the industry in which she was already well known. Through working with her transitions coach she took a number of actions. She declined the job offer in such a way that those recruiting her wished her well and even held out the prospect of future business. She committed to working on a global basis with offices in two locations, the UK and the USA. She developed and sorted a database of people with whom she had strong relationships and who would be helpful to her in launching her new business. She declared her new identity and her mission through a designed set of communications tools. She made specific requests of many people and created a kitchen cabinet of advisers. She learned to present herself with conviction and confidence as though her new business had already been a success. People responded to her in kind and she immediately began to attract both opportunities and resources.
The Results:
In less than six months, TK negotiated a major contract with a world-renowned financial institution and is in negotiations with a number of other large companies.
TK has become a true entrepreneurial business woman, operating a company entirely -- from legal and tax issues, to marketing and sales strategies, to translating her expertise into consulting tools, to learning to make the shift from working inside to being an effective outside consultant.
TK has learned to ride the predictable roller coaster of the transition to entrepreneurship, discovering new depths of resilience and resourcefulness within herself
TK has developed new relationships with other women entrepreneurs and executives
TK is also creating her own non-profit foundation, a dream she has long had that springs off of the volunteer leadership work she has done throughout her life.
TK's relationships with family, friends and colleagues are flourishing and she loves the freedom of her new life.
Case Study:
A Positive Ending Leads to Inventing a New Business Model
The Situation:
A senior officer (LP) of an international management-consulting firm wanted to leave the company he was working for and embark on a new career. With four young children, he wanted a life that did not require the constant travel of his high-powered management-consulting career. But LP had a dilemma. His consulting firm prized loyalty in its senior people and few had been able to depart without hurt feelings and damaged relationships. One thing he wanted from his transitions coach was help in designing a positive ending. The second thing he wanted from coaching was how to invent his next big thing. He had a very specific and exciting idea for acquiring a business of his own but needed to craft a path from here to there. Also, many aspects of his plan presented new risks to him and his family that he wanted to manage.
The Transitions Coaching Process:
This coaching engagement focused on both a clean and successful ending and a new beginning for the client. LP worked with Don Arnoudse to create his own quality standards for how he wanted to leave the company. Through the coaching process he took charge of the situation, mapped out the steps needed to leave, and was able to depart with his head high and his relationship with his former employer intact. Free of any baggage or regrets he now focused on defining his next business opportunity and his scorecard for success in all phases of his life.
A key theme of his transition coaching with The 2nd Half was leverage-how to quickly create momentum and broad impact. LP shifted from his traditional practice of doing it all himself. He developed filtering mechanisms to identify business opportunities and a clear presentation of his commitments and vision to attract investors and other resources. Coaching helped him see that he wanted to design a much bigger business game than acquiring and running a single company. In fact, he wanted to invent a new business model that would prove enticing to lots of talented people. Rather than worry about how he could afford to pay such talent, he invited them to play the business invention game with him - to jump in and help him carve out the details to his vision - without any financial compensation up front. Just a chance to get in on the ground floor of his bold new business concept was enough incentive for a number of people - executives, investors and founders of other companies -- to join him in his new venture.
The Results:
The client departed from his former employer on excellent terms and was even offered an opportunity to contract his services part-time with the company. He raised the standard on how to leave with integrity and mutual respect.
The client formed a new company, based on a ground breaking business model, which is building strong momentum. To show good faith in the new venture, a number of high-powered colleagues volunteered their services in the short term.
The client has lined up funding sources, is approaching acquisition targets, and developing innovative frameworks for economic rewards for partners, investors and founders.
The client gained the full support of his spouse and has structured his life so that he is fully meeting his commitments as a husband and father and taking good care of his own health and spirit. His whole life is working for him now.
Case Study:
Transitioning from Corporate Life to Entrepreneurship
The Situation:
A CEO (PH) brought in to turn around a struggling dot-com company found that despite his best efforts the company had to shut down. As a result, PH found himself in a transition. He had to make new decisions on what to do next with his life. Initially he sought a coach for help in finding his next CEO position. However, the sluggish economy hampered his efforts. Working with Don Arnoudse as his transitions coach he reinvented himself, launching his own consulting business as a first time entrepreneur - a change that challenged him in every aspect of his life.
The Transitions Coaching Process:
PH shifted his identity from a job seeker to a creator of value. He filed away the resume that described his past and generated a new way of presenting himself that projected his skills, experience and commitments as a unique and compelling offering to the marketplace. He found ways to leverage his particular blend of business expertise and years of knowledge. He developed new clarity on the ways he was truly gifted and how he could apply those talents to his service offering.
The coaching process helped him create his own success scorecard that kept him on course in setting his business development priorities and provided a framework to discuss and monitor the progress of his transition with his wife and children and gain their support through the early ups and downs. He learned new distinctions that he applied to the systematic sorting of the many names in his address book. He learned to go far beyond typical networking behavior and began to make powerful requests of his relationships that brought him critical resources and opportunities to attract customers. Coaching helped him focus on his commitments and stay the course despite the predictable fears and worries that came at 4 o'clock in the morning.
The Results:
PH expects to achieve 200% of his revenue goals in his second year in a difficult economy.
PH is now attracting work through channels such as VC firms as well as through direct selling to prospects.
PH's new business success has now enabled him to employ others as associates on projects.
PH has mastered the uncertainties of entrepreneurial life and learned to prepare for the peaks and valleys of the new business cycle.
PH has generated new depths of confidence that, in turn, attract more business.
PH has acquired a new freedom in his life and enjoys a flexible schedule with family and friends.
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