Talk About A Shift!
Read what happens for an employee on final warning, after participating in a TRP workshop and coaching …
I just got off the phone with a coaching client and feel compelled to share this story.
I was hired to help an Executive Director of a non-profit write a final warning for an employee for “unacceptable performance and conduct,” including “disrespectful and aggressive interactions with co-workers.” They had been working with her on her conduct, including sending her to a Franklin Covey class, but things were not improving in their eyes.
When she received the corrective action, she was given the opportunity to attend a TRP class, and to her credit she decided to take it. In my 3 plus years teaching TRP at that point, there had been many people who had declared during class, “You know what, I play the victim,” “I’m such an enabler,” or, “I’m totally a rescuer.” However, this woman stood up at one point and said, “You know what, I’m an aggressor.” She shared that she was realizing that she was basically that “angry guy” slide we show in class. She also later shared that she realized while sitting in the class that I was the outside consultant that she heard had helped the Executive Director write her Final Warning.
Despite that, or maybe because of it, again she stepped into the challenge and discomfort and sought me out to coach her. We identified and worked through some of her challenges using some TRP concepts and exercises and some other methods. Empathic intuition came easily working with her and was very useful in calling her out on some counterproductive and self-defeating attitudes and behaviors, and pushing her further.
We ended our sessions, and then about a month ago I heard from her again because she was having conflict with her leadership and felt she needed a sounding board and guidance. We explored where she was reactive and what was within her control. We identified her options and she weighed them for best case and worst case scenarios in choosing each option. She basically talked herself into not reacting directly at all, and found a lot of empowerment in that. She then realized she could make a choice to keep fighting a battle that was beyond her control (the way leadership chose to lead and run the non-profit), to accept it, or to move on. She chose acceptance, as well as to start looking for other opportunities.
She called me a few days ago to help her negotiate an offer she had gotten to be the Executive Director of another non-profit about which she is passionate. She let go of attachment to the outcome, advocated for herself, and quickly shifted out of any victim mentality she experienced during the negotiations. The board recognized her for her positivity and her value. She called me to tell me they adjusted their offer up to her required salary. As of this month she will have gone from Final Warning to Executive Director!
How about that for a shift?!