The Recession-Proof Executive: 3 Case Studies For Executive Coaching

The Recession-Proof Executive

Recession, high inflation, increasing energy prices, rising interest rates, layoffs and replacement by technology advancements – truth told: there is a lot of uncertainty going on in the market and no matter which profession, industry or even level of seniority you are in – now is the time to get active, and take control over your career and future. As much as the current climate presents unique challenges, it also means there are unique opportunities if we embrace them for what they are. In this episode we discuss 7 strategies to not only future-proof your career but fast-track your progress!

There has been a lot of news and concerns around the state of the economy which of course, impacts careers and with that – you in one way or another.

According to the Australian Financial Review, almost half of all businesses fear a recession is coming, especially small businesses in manufacturing and construction. NAB also conducted an analysis recently that shows a 30% surge in business insolvencies in 2022 after a COVID-19 slowdown, raising concerns of a further increase in collapses during the looming recession in 2023 due to economic challenges.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom because when there are challenging moments, there are also new opportunities that come up but it does require to a) see them, b) embrace them and c) take advantage of them by being pro-active.

And since I’m all for that, I want to share some strategies that I’m working on with my clients in the executive coaching and also the authority brand coaching programs to give you some ideas and inspiration on possible outcomes of coaching engagements as well as spark some inspiration on how one of the case studies and situations may apply to you/ what you can learn from it.

Strategy / Case study 1: Create your own business case

One of my clients has been in the GM role for quite some time, in fact, for the last decade. The only thing that has changed over the last few gigs is that he’s grown the size of his portfolio he’s responsible for going from $10Mio to $3.6Bio. Now that in itself is a massive achievement for sure. However – since he’s a high performer and never stands still, he’s now realised that the only way for him to continue growing and advancing his career is to reflect on his leadership style, get clear on any blind spots and rethink his approach to his next step.

We’ve been working together since March 2023 and the one thing that was clear from the get go was his operational excellence. He’s been doing this type of role for such a long time that he could do it in his sleep and that is also a risk because e’s ‘forgotten’ to build his parallel skill set which I always emphasis and that is executive communicating skills, altitude thinking and strategic relationship building with the next level of decision-makers. He’s been so head down for the last few years that he’s not changed his way of leading and reflecting on what he wants for his next role. The initial reason why he engaged me was to decide between 2 career options (which at least he thought that were the only way)  to get to the next step.

Instead – I challenged him to think beyond those 2 options and brainstorm what a potential 3rd, 4th, or 10thoption could be. Now initially there wasn’t much feedback from his side because of his immediate response ‘our business is different and it doesn’t work like that’. It was already in our 3rd session together that this switch has flipped and now 6 sessions later, he’s already eliminated 1 of the initial 2 options as he realised that his natural skill set and strengths and personality are the complete opposite to what this role would require. He wouldn’t have had this insights and realisation if we wouldn’t have started from the beginning and map out his unique value proposition and competitive positioning.

Plus- what we’ve also worked on over the last couple of sessions were his presentation skills as he had to present at 2 big board meetings, 1 industry conference, 1 client road show and 2x executive team meetings.

Simply looking at his initial content and flow showed his tactical approach rather than his strategic thinking which is exactly what execs are looking for when it comes to promotions. Same goes for customers – his main focus in the presentation was a very tactical overview of what happened whereas I worked with him on creating context so that the content that follows not only makes sense but gets people to buy-in what the next recommendations are. Without understanding why certain results happened and what the learnings are moving forward, people come up with their own explanation and that is not always correct.

So the main thing that we have been working on has been his strategic thinking skills that not only takes market changes into consideration to connect it with the business strategy but also an improvement of his executive communication skills to then get the buy in for the suggestion.

Not only that- this particular area that we’re working on establishing isn’t a big part of the business yet- however, the market has seen a massive growth in that field across the entire industry so simply by going first, doing the research, presenting potential options to implement it – initially within his current remit so we get some runs on the board to then make a business case to crate a new / larger department for this – shows executive leadership skills because he wasn’t asked to do so but this change will be a massive value add to the business.

Creating and proofing this business case however isn’t even it. We have also done a risk, reward and return on investment analysis to go with the proposal to demonstrate that he’s thought already a few steps ahead and can address any possible objections heads on and with facts. This is what we call in marketing objection-based marketing and I also work with my exec and personal brand clients on that.

What excites me most however working with my client on that is that he’s now so much self-aware and also realises where and why he can provide the biggest value to and focus on those activities that don’t drain him and allocate everything else to0 his team. He now not only knows how to leverage his experience and expertise to develop a business case for himself that aligns with the company's goals and objectives but he’s able to position himself as a trusted leader who contributes to the organisation's success whilst being excited and fully committed to this company again.

Strategy / Case Study 2: Stepping into Partnership

Another client of mine has been promoted to partner last year (yeah) but no surprise – without adequate training for this new role. And truth told- this is one of the most common cases / clients I work with.  They either want to get into the C-Suite / Partner level or just stepped into it, only to realise they are not sure how to navigate this new role, how to adjust their presence and communications style and how to effectively lead and influence teams whilst winning clients. This is something not many talk about but should be openly discussed as many fail in this area. There is not much training around going from technical expert and doer to become the rainmaker, the Go-To in their field. This is also why many execs or leader who’ve been promoted because of their own high ability to do the job ‘fail’ when they all of a sudden have to lead a team and/or are responsible for getting clients through the door.

BD is a massive aspect for partners and the C-Suite and not many realise that. The higher you climb, the less it’s about your own technical abilities but your ability to keep your team busy, build an influential network and turn relationships into revenue.

This is exactly what the focus has been with this particular client who’s in the forensic accounting space.

She’s been with the business for 10 years and became a partner which is incredible but also often means there are blinkers on when it comes to how business is conducted and best practises to get new clients and lead a team as the lack of diverse experience and the tried and tested way from the organisation is the only option many consider.

The focus with this client was on content creation and contribution, in particular through hosting events, facilitation of panel discussions and speaking at industry conferences herself. The reason we decided to go this direction is that she’s in B2B and works with high-net-worth clients and relationship building requires high touch approach. This is a very different angle and method to future-proof yourself compared to the first case study where the focus is on building internal relationships. This is why I’m such a fan of 1:1 coaching because there isn’t the one way or the one method that gets results – there is the one method or approach that gets results for a particular person in this particular situation. People can learn everything themselves, but it comes down to first assessing whether this strategy or direction is the right one to go and then to make it work for the individual taking all aspects of their life, their resources, their personality etc into consideration.

The content creation and contribution approach not only helped her to open doors to new clients but also has built her profile in the industry as we’re also proactive with outreach for collaborations and appearances at other events.

Strategy / Case study 3: Build a portfolio career

The last case study I will share in this episode is a client who I’ve been working on and off for a couple of years now, mainly on his exec leadership skills initially which has already paid off as he’s been appointed to a board director but now to build a portfolio career that connects his 2 passions – the recruitment space and tech start-up business advisory which he wants to focus on making it his next career.

Yes- you may think there isn’t a common denominator but that’s exactly my job to find it and then connect it and make sense of it to others. This is why making big transitions or changes alone is so tricky because often we can’t see the forest for trees and let me not get started with the emotional rollercoaster we’re going through when it comes to stepping into a new direction especially when you don’t have the *exact* previous experience. This is where imposter syndrome shows up, we doubt ourselves and usually give up before we gain traction. Again- this is where coaching comes in as you get the objective outside support to put things into perspective.

In this scenario, we identify the common denominator and that is to clarify goals, identifying gaps, possible solutions and then choose the most suitable one for where the client wants to go. Recruitment – when done right and on a more strategic and high level, is very much involved in the bigger picture business plan because if you don’t know where the company is at, where they want to go and what the gaps are in terms of talents, skills, resources and/or assets, then simple hiring someone to fill a vacancy or backfill a role doesn’t cut it.

So as a recruiter, you need to be able to be a good listener, understanding complex problems and bringing in his expertise on how people, tech, systems, and processes come in to make it a smooth operation.

He’s been in the recruitment space for 25 years so he’s seen a lot. Since we want to set him up as advisor for tech start-ups (which actually only came through in one of our coaching sessions that this is what he aspires to do next as from experience, I have seen over and over again that high level recruiters make excellent business advisors because they have gained a broad understanding of all business functions and see how things work together but they don’t necessarily have this one deep technical specialisation in a particular function.

But if you’ve been in recruitment for a while, and you work closely with clients and step into the advisory and consulting role by providing market insights, asking the though questions and also bring up any challenges you know usually happen, you get a really good understanding of how businesses work.

That’s the same in my case. Because I’ve come from a commercial marketing background and was on the tools for 10 years, it was easy for me to talk the talk and quickly establish trust with my clients and become their advisor which always went beyond talents. Now I’m working closely with an investor group on all their scale ups from the get-go where we establish the right business structure, run a strategy session with the exec team at the beginning, map out the talent matrix and so forth.

Anyway I’ve gone a little off topic but because I’ve repositioning hundreds of professionals and created commercial opportunities for them by connecting the dots between one career to another, it’s pretty easy for me to find the common denominator that connects one direction with another.

So this is what we do in this scenario – we’re focusing on his previous experience and gained expertise during his time in recruitment and develop a value proposition that attracts a particular target audience.

Plus- a big part of the coaching engagement is to also work on developing the skills needed to succeed as a consultant/ advisor as he needs to build up a new community / establish a new way to get businesses and clients on board after his last 15+ years have all been based on referrals but that only gets you so far.

Having said that – building a portfolio career also future-proofs people by having multiple income streams and whilst I’m usually all for leveraging the same IP but in different formats for different audiences, in this case, we still focus on one thing – that is his strength of project and program management just across 2 unrelated industries which also has its benefits.

I don’t want to go through the ins and outs of a portfolio career in this episode – I did one right at the beginning of starting this podcast which is like 2 years ago now so maybe it’d be time to give a little refresher as the state of play with AI etc certainly has changed. I’m curious to know- is that something you want to learn more about, building a portfolio career and multiple income streams? Let me know – send me a DM on LinkedIn or Instagram.

But to wrap up this blog post – I hope these 3 case studies and scenarios have given you a bit of a taste how to best leverage coaching, the possible focus / outcome you can expect when working with a coach on your career progression.