Supporting a director through managing a difficult change process

The Finance Director of an international organisation was charged with the very difficult and public task of transitioning the current UK workforce from a defined benefit to defined contribution pension arrangement.  He had a number of potentially very difficult stakeholders to influence, including Trustee Bodies and Trades Unions and the remit to ensure that changes were made on time and within the parent company’s cost parameters.

The Director was fully accountable, but had very little moral support or background knowledge and experience and was dealing with the strategy of the change single handily.  His reputation in the business was at risk.

The CEDR coach was engaged to work on a 1 to 1 basis with the director over a period of several months.  This involved:

• coaching the Director on approaches to prevent conflict
• helping him to deal with disagreement
• testing him on realistic options for negotiation and the viability of the timetable of implementation.

Major problems were averted and the director completed the task on time within the agreed budget.

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