Our client was a senior manager in his early forties with good academic and professional qualifications working within a major international organisation. He had progressed through a series of increasingly senior roles over the past 10 years with the company. Most of his career had been in operations including international assignments but in the last few years he had taken on more strategic roles at the centre of the organisation.

Our client had been showing a natural flair for strategic business development internal to the company and to its market. These strengths were somewhat of a surprise to both the individual concerned and to the organisation’s senior management. He had built a strong positive technical reputation in operational roles but was also seen as less effective in expressing his impatience and criticism of poor standards as he saw things. The priority was to explore how an individual develops their career to exploit past experiences and meet their newly developing expectations whilst helping the organisation to move on from seeing that individual as they were, recognising the new potential. The classic transition from a transactional to a strategic role.

TRIMENTIS were invited to lead a personal review with the senior manager to develop a personal stratagem. This would provide the basis for their personal and organisation career path.

• A compelling personal stratagem and development plan setting out the features of a preferred, feasible and ambitious career path supported by specific development needs were delivered, gaining wide stakeholder commitment.

• The stratagem signposted a transition from a purely operational role to a range of more strategic options encompassing general management, business development and organisational transformation roles.

• The organisation’s senior managers were helped to develop positive new perceptions of the participant and to engage in discussions ‘as equals’, overcoming barriers of the past.

• The senior manager developed radically, building a new level of personal confidence set against a genuine understanding of his strengths and weaknesses. The clarity around his new and considerable aspirations was grounded in a carefully crafted personal development plan.

• The senior manager developed insights into the fundamentals of an approach they could repeatedly use in the development of a strategic context applicable to a range of business situations including personal, team and organisational strategies.