Measure Your Mindset. Seed Your Success!

Adam was a young man with big dreams. He was working with a company boss who did not appreciate his ideas. He was only required to follow orders and get the job done. But Adam had other ideas. He told himself if his boss did not want to listen to his ideas, perhaps he could strike out on his own with them. He approached us with this dream. We initially did not want to work with him because the sector he wanted to work in was very traditional, and there was very little upside, in terms of process and product. Hence, we told him we would not work with him. However, he was adamant - and he would not take no for an answer, even wanting to plunk down the full $30K coaching fee in advance. Seeing that he was a man of limited means, and was willing to work on his dreams, we agreed to work with him provided he applied EVERYTHING we agreed he should do. He agreed. The programme was called "Double or Nothing", where we will get the coachee to double his/her revenue in 1 year, or they pay nothing. And for businesses that had zero revenue like his, we would get them at least to $100K. We coached him and helped him build his business, and he was able to hit $100K revenue in 6 months. We went on to double that in the next 6 months! He renewed the coaching programme for another year, where we again doubled his revenue within another 8 months! By the end of the second year, he wanted to renew the coaching again for another year, but we said no, since he clearly knows how to double his income without our help! He nows draws in more than $1M a year!

Billy was a high-potential in this government organisation and while he spent the last 5 years as a policy officer, he had just been promoted to Assistant Director, with 10 people reporting to him, many of whom have been in the organisation for more than 10 years, and all of whom were looking at different aspects of policy and regulation, he now felt that he was a little out of his depth. It was one thing to be an individual contributor with a small support team, but it is a whole different kettle of fish to have a diverse team to direct. Billy had anxiety attacks whenever he had team meetings because he felt that he might be called out for being a "fake" and "inexperienced". That was when we were called in to work with him. Straight away, we worked on his value to the organisation and how his bossed viewed him versus how he viewed himself. We made sure that it was not a mistake promoting him to this position. Next, we uncovered the leadership qualities required for the position. We agreed that he would focus on being a transformational leader. While competency is a key leadership trait, we got him to realise that he would not be as competent in the jobs of his direct reports as they were since they had more experience than him. However, his role was not to do their job, but to ensure they did their job with as little hindrance as possible. As such, he would have to protect them from external influence, leaving them to get the job done. We reframed him to work at the Director level and leave the operational level to the people who could do the job. By building on his confidence and competence to deal at the Director and above levels, Billy flourished in his role, and was promoted to full Director in 3 years! 

Charlene is an entrepreneur. She is also a chef. She had trained in Singapore, but had gone to Thailand and South Korea, working with some good establishments there. She had also created her own repertoire - a Thai-Korean fusion that had its own following (she admitted that this could be a love or hate relationship, but she was happy with that). For all intents, she seemed to embrace the growth mindset. However, when she completed our 5 Dimensions Growth Mindset assessment, she was surprised at being fixed on Pride and Forward. This was not a good combination, since these were the starting and ending dimensions. She admitted that she was having problems with the sous chefs she has hired because they did not seem to understand her concept. This had resulted in several of them quitting and she was now facing an existential problem (apart from the Covid issue as well!) - if she was unable to find a good replacement for the sous chefs, she would not be able to continue with the restaurant. While some people may think this is a business coaching gig, it is not. We had to work on her mindset, because she has been stuck in the past, and she wants everything done to the specific process. While we agree that running a restaurant needs consistency, and hence a rigorous process, we also agreed that with Covid, and the inconsistency of ingredient quality, it would be better not to stick to past successes so closely. There may probably be a need to create new recipes and dishes that distinguish them from the normal stable. It took a long time for her to overcome her hold on the past, but when she finally let go, realising that she could not control everything, the dishes came out better, and she was willing to accept slippages from her sous chefs, in favour (flavour?) of diversity.