A young award winning business, had hit a plateau. The MD had serious doubts about the company's ability to make any significant profits to finance the next necessary big step in sales growth. She felt that she lacked the experience and skills to take the business on.
Historically, the company had been just her, now she was moving into premises and taking staff on for the first time. The next year in business development was the biggest she had experienced to date.
During an on-going review with her Business Link advisor, the MD voiced her concerns and together they discussed possible personal development options. She had little time to give to herself and the business was always calling. With this in mind, she agreed to commit to some personal skills development with Designated Associates and to enroll upon the NWDA Business Mentoring Programme that Designated Associates are also facilitating across Merseyside & Cheshire.
The sessions highlighted several significant strengths:
- Leadership
- Technical Knowledge
- Vision
These are strong MD qualities and they had served her well and we built on these and then we also looked at her challenges and areas for development which were:
- Emotion. This involved the MD feeling very personally about the business and not wanting to let go of anything.
- Delegation trying to do too much herself and not letting the new team members participate
- Recognition/Confidence. Despite numerous awards the MD didn’t make the most of the recognition she was achieving due to lack of personal confidence.
Our sessions enabled the MD to reflect upon and eventually see the things that had to change including herself and her approach to some areas of the business. It wasn’t that she couldn’t do it or didn’t have the skills but rather that her emotion and passion whilst a significant driver was also a barrier to growth.
Having accepted what she needed to change Designated then worked with the MD to build a customized tool bag for the MD to draw on to enable her to quickly turn the situation around. The tool bag supported both her strengths and weaknesses in her leadership style.
In one year, the company took on new premises and new staff and began to look at opportunities to trade internationally.
An experienced organization like ours can work with clients to blend a flexible approach to learning. We have a business focused schedule of courses on going throughout the year, a pool of experienced and qualified mentors and coaches and the know how to enable role development and to change leaders thinking and behaviours to account for any business and economic environment.
Who within any business has the courage to tell the MD he or she could do better and then show them how and support them through the changes??
The individual and the company are still growing
Footnote
There are many different approaches and styles of learning on offer at Designated Associates call us for a no obligation discussion about your personal and business development. 0151 653 3338.
Session costs vary and we currently have some completely funded places available for the NWDA Business Mentoring programme
We are an award winning organization led by our award winning Managing Director, Elaine Owen. We are a commercial organization with social aims to enable enterprise growth via Women In Business North West.