At the start:
From e-commerce to commercial management
After completing a bachelor's degree in computer science in her home country and an MBA in the USA, Celine came to the Netherlands at the beginning of her career. There she started in e-commerce consulting, continued her career at a global player in the consumer goods industry, and for the last few years she worked at two scale-ups in online distribution.
In the meantime, she has developed internationally from product and also briefly account manager to marketing director and then further to her first final responsible commercial managementposition a few years ago.This experience was exactly what her new employer was looking for when they spoke.
But the mix of a new sector and the clearly greater people responsibility she was given here made this a significant career step. Fortunately, her new employer was also aware of this.
During our process:
the onboarding
Despite her busy schedule, we managed to schedule our sessions, mostly face-to-face, every few weeks. But from the beginning it was clear how great the pressure was. Especially in the first months of that new job, when everything came together: introduction, learning, decision-making, expectation management, team building, relationship management and so on. Her sharp mind and her experience in managing opinionated professionals helped her to keep things under control in those first months.
In our sessions, we therefore focused each time on only a few urgent issues that were playing out at that moment. Topics ranged from working with her team and direct colleagues, to managing the enormous information and meeting culture she had encountered, to communicating upwards: towards the Executive Board/Supervisory Board. In doing so, we managed to focus our attention and time especially on those issues where we could add value the fastest. So much for the onboarding side of our work together.
myself
During our process:
the development
In addition, we worked with various tools to map her fundamental strengths and weaknesses and her most important energy sources and drains. This ranged from interviews to assessments, 360° feedback and a motivation compass. Of course, the added value was not in the tools themselves, but in the in-depth conversations we had about the different outcomes and their coherence. Not easy to fit in between all the urgent challenges she faced. But effective, fortunately. It deepened our understanding of Celine as a person and thereby facilitated her learning and development in the role.
After about nine months in this position, we both felt that she had landed. In conclusion, we made a kind of personal plan in broad outline. In addition to a number of goals for this year and in the slightly longer term, it also included the most important stakeholder issues that still needed attention and the most important personal development points in the context of 'life long learning', all on one A4 page.Â
And with that, our onboarding process came to an end. Celine was happy with a flying start to this important step in her career and has since developed further within the organization on her own.
Please note: This is a fictional case, based on a mix of experiences from my work with clients.
