Jess is a managing associate in a City law firm. She is recognised as an outstanding performer. She sought coaching to address feedback that she tended to complete her work very quickly, which led her to make occasional avoidable errors, or misjudge tone or approach with a client.
We discussed her motivations. Among other factors, Jess had a long-standing assumption that a “very quick” response was necessary to succeed, and that a slower response might be interpreted as her not being on her game or good/clever enough to grasp the issue straight away. Having realised that these assumptions were incorrect for what she now wanted to achieve, Jess put in place strategies to slow herself down, manage the expectations of her stakeholders, and create the appropriate time and space for a considered response.
With these new tactics in place, Jess’s judgement and accuracy improved significantly, and was almost immediately noticeable to others. The partner who put Jess forward for coaching noted, “I had hoped it would help her over time. I'm pleased to say that in fact it's made an extraordinary difference, in almost no time at all. I'm actually quite stunned by the results.”
Jess has now been invited to attend a partnership development centre and her sponsoring Partner describes her as 'ready for partnership'.
Perhaps even more importantly, Jess has been able to role-model her more sustainable practice to junior team-members, as well as coach them to be able to spot and address their own potentially unhelpful working practices early on.
