🤔 Have you ever had to prepare for a difficult conversation that was keeping you awake at night?
One of my clients, Arthur (not his real name) used a recent coaching session to help with this. Arthur leads a large, successful secondary school within a multi-academy trust. Like many schools in the current climate, Arthur’s school needed to make significant savings for this academic year to balance the budget. Arthur had spent time working with senior colleagues in his school and trust to come up with solutions, but remained concerned about the impact of his proposals.
Arthur had a meeting coming up with his CEO where he needed to present his plan for making savings. However, he also felt that, morally, he had to make his CEO aware of the impact of his plans – in particular how they might affect his pupil’s achievement and wellbeing. He felt that ultimately, he wanted the CEO to 'sign off' the plans with the full knowledge of the impact on provision, staff and pupils.
However, Arthur was preoccupied about getting the tone of the conversation right. This is what was keeping him awake at night. He wanted the meeting to go as well as possible. He didn’t want the CEO to think that he wasn't on board. He wanted the CEO to understand that he had considered a range of different solutions, and had discarded some due to them not being workable in his context. He was keen for his CEO to agree his proposals. He also wanted to maintain a positive relationship with his CEO whilst outlining his challenges, solutions and the impact of his proposals.
Initially, the coaching session enabled Arthur to unravel his concerns and to articulate this complex challenge. He knew there was a worry, but he had been struggling to be clear and specific about exactly what was bothering him.
Once Arthur’s concern were clear, the coaching session then enabled him to plan for the tricky conversation so that he was able to manage this with confidence. Broadly, this is the plan he put together during the coaching session:
1️⃣ An introduction to set the tone:
a. outline the purpose of the meeting,
b. Describe wish to be transparent
c. ask to work collaboratively with the CEO
2️⃣ Explain the solutions that are being suggested, the impact of these and how these has been mitigated.
3️⃣ Explain solutions that have been ruled out, with an explanation of these
4️⃣ Discuss the impact of these savings and the inherent risks.
5️⃣ Seek agreement with CEO to move forward with solutions proposed.
By the end of the coaching session, Arthur was really delighted with the impact of the coaching. The quotation on the image, sums up his feedback.
🤔 If you have challenges that keep you awake at night, coaching can help. Please contact me at info@clairewplattcoaching.co.uk to book a FREE discovery session.
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