Individual Support - Case Study
Joanne Thomas
Manager, Professional Development - Global IT organisation
Joanne first met Ashley Wood when he was engaged to deliver a number of two-day Mentoring Skills workshops to support the set-up of a mentoring programme within Joanne's organisation. Not only was Ashley an experienced trainer in the skills of mentoring but, for several years, he had also been mentoring individuals at a variety of levels within organisations.
In the course of meeting with Ashley to discuss the training workshops and the mentoring programme, Joanne came to appreciate his non-judgmental, supportive style. Until then, Joanne had not found anyone whom she felt she could trust sufficiently to be her mentor, mainly because the issues she needed to address were around self-confidence and influencing skills. She felt unable to share what she regarded as 'inadequacies' with anyone else in the organisation.
Joanne went on to meet with Ashley for a number of two-hour mentoring sessions and worked on building her confidence, as well as addressing other issues that were current at the time. Ashley would sometimes adopt a coaching style, when appropriate to the situation, and at other times would challenge her assumptions or simply listen and ask questions to help her get to the bottom of the problem.
After a few sessions, Joanne felt that her self-confidence had increased significantly and she no longer feared the influencing situations she inevitably faced in her day-to-day role as Manager of the Professional Development team.
"Ashley had been mentoring me on an informal basis whenever we met, and I knew that he would be a good choice of mentor for me. I think I was quite a challenge for him. I would talk around in circles a lot of the time, but he helped me understand why I was doing it. I think the most important thing for me was trust. I felt I could trust Ashley implicitly and I know this to be true. With Ashley's help, I realised I did have the capability to lead the team and that gave me the confidence I needed. That was two years ago, and I have successfully managed and led the Professional Development function to the added-value status it holds within the organisation today."
