Rocky Relationships:  Richard

Richard has been in his role for three years.  He is known as a “no-nonsense”, “take no prisoners” type of manager. He has made great contributions to the company, but recently his level of turnover has started to increase and getting people to transfer into his department is difficult at best. There are rumblings in the company amongst his peers that his style is causing a lot of friction working with units other than his own.  Richard is not sure why these things are happening but he’s having a harder time getting projects accomplished.  He feels that he’s a straightforward person and doesn’t want to change that about himself.  He would like to be put forward in the company for a more senior level position, but has been told that he’s “not ready”.

In Perspective Approach

Help Richard develop a fuller picture of his strengths and weaknesses and raise his self-awareness of his interactions and their impact on others. Assist him in putting together a development plan to address issues that may be holding him back.

• Start with a discussion of what’s expected of Richard in his current role with both Richard and his manager.
• Discuss Richard’s aspirations with his manager and find out what he sees as Richard’s needs to address before he’d be considered for another role.
• Obtain additional feedback from Richard’s key stakeholders either through interviews or 360^o feedback tool.
• Use other assessments, if necessary, to round out Richard’s profile.
• Spend time with Richard debriefing the feedback, and developing a plan to address those areas that will make the most impact.