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“I have been marketing manager for five year in a growing SME. When I took the job, I was the only person and had to organize, create, structure. As the company was developing fast, the Chairman decided to enrich the team: he hired a marketing director. I didn’t find my role anymore, but didn’t know what to do: “do I want to work longer in marketing?”, “am I competent if the Chairman hired a marketing director and did not give me the job?”, “should I seek in the same area, where global companies are predominant, or reorientate my career in communications? Or should I launch into my dream: making movies?”
I couldn’t make a decision. I felt worse and worse at the office, however full of energy I usually am, and didn’t want to go to work anymore; I couldn’t stand up in the morning, I felt distressed on Sunday night, thinking of the coming week… Then, I decided to be accompanied by a coach to help me finding my way.
The two first sessions were dedicated to determine my mid-term aim: how can I consider my professional future? And also short term results: how can I feel better in my job now? How can I express what is wrong?
We followed two directions:
- What is my aim? What is important to me and which concrete results do I want do get?
- On which bases can I rely? My intern resources and my own changes depend on me; then, the others can bring me help: who are my allies, the people I can count on to be successful in my projects
This phase was essential and would guide the entire process. Short term results, fast victories, as my coach said, would give me confidence. I never dared asked the Chairman why he didn’t give me the job of marketing director and decided to request an interview. My coach and I prepared the interview and had a role play: what do I want to tell him, what is my objective? How will I know that the interview was successful? I felt well prepared and was relax during the interview. The chairman explained his strategy during this interview: he wishes to develop rapidly his distribution network; the marketing manager he hired comes from a Large Company and has a valuable knowledge of distribution networks with a 20 years’ experience. He also said that he trusted my own skills and appreciated my energy, my resourcefulness in finding innovating packaging, motivating sales forces, in a word, he is very satisfied!
I felt valued by this interview. Even if it confirmed that I didn’t have a brilliant future in this small company, my skills were acknowledged, and this gave me energy building my project!
How could I imagine my professional future? I still felt uncertain. I explored with the coach my skills, my aspirations, what I can do and wish to preserve, what I don’t want to do anymore –like a skill assessment-. Moreover, we searched my internal resources: “what makes me stand up every morning”, what is important to me. We progressed step by step thanks to the reliable relation installed by my coach. He sometimes faces me, with benevolence, and I can think, watch things in a different way. After several sessions, the coach suggested an exercise that helped me “watching me” in my next job. It was a revelation: yes, I want to go on working in marketing, but in operational marketing. Yes, I want to stay in small companies, even if I have to change my business sector.
Then, my project was clear and I was able to prepare a plan of battle, build my CV as well as my speech, and have contacts. With my own will and my project, I am ready to implement this project while I find a renewed interest in my present job.
The coaching took seven months, including the summer break. I had a 1:30 hour session every two weeks.”
Muriel was kind enough to inform us that she recently found a new job in a pharmaceutical middle-sized company.