If you missed the two prior week’s newsletters, you’ll want to go back and read them first. See the link below.
Back to the story – We’re talking about a very successful professional who was barely able to hold up the weight of the career he’d created. We knew how he’d gotten to where he was. And the thinking he needed to clean up to move through it to something better. That was all from our first coaching conversation.
In our second, we were zeroed in on what to do. I asked Dennis if he could transfer away 25% of his clients. That was a big, complicated question. And he’d need to transfer most of the smaller ones that he had started out with 25 years ago.
Can you see the reluctance, fear, guilt, since of loss that comes into play? If you had the whole story, you’d know how those voices were still trying to run the show. Even while we could then see them at work. The voices were no longer hiding in the shadows. They were right out in front, defying what Dennis was now trying to do.
So, there were many subparts to shifting those clients. Some internal to him and his thinking, and some outside. Who was going to take over those clients? Will his revenue hour and chargeable hour numbers still work? We started looking at other ways to support and leverage. Bring in more resources, lift up expectations on some of the existing team members. I’m not saying these were easy. I am saying quite a lot could be done and was done.
And there were conversations to be had with the “big bosses”. Dennis was a senior partner with significant firmwide roles, piled on top of having more than a 100% client base already.
Outcomes – He would definitely say God was at work here. The outcomes have been almost unbelievable.
Dennis had first decided/ committed. As he had said: “I just can’t do this for another 10 years.” Then, he went to work not in his business, but on his business. What he had to do was a lot. AND he started seeing daylight fast. I remember what it was like for him after a few of those clarifying planning conversations with the big bosses. And after some of the client responsibilities had been shifted.
Next thing you know, Dennis got a big promotion! A bigger firmwide role that wasn’t piled on top, as it might have been. Rather, it replaced most of those other previous roles and work activity. That happened within the first year after we’d finished our six-month engagement.
