The Marketing Academy: Behind every scholar is a great coach

By Sean Hall, General Manager of Employee Experience at Telstra
By By Sean Hall, General Manager of Employee Experience at Telstra | 16 June 2015
 

Behind the scenes of The Marketing Academy is an amazing support crew of some of Australia’s most respected coaches. Each one of them has given their time to invest and pay forward their wealth of knowledge, skills, experiences and personal philosophies to the support the 30 scholars throughout the nine month program.

From personal experience, coaching has been the best investment I have made in my career and myself. After all how often do you get time with someone completely removed from your day-to-day world whose only interest is in seeing you become a better version of yourself?

I checked in with scholars Heilan Bolton (20th Century Fox), Adam Ross (Mindshare) and Sharon Lewis (M&C Saatchi) and their respective coaches Oscar Trimboli, Michelle Duval and John Green on how the experience had been so far, the value of coaching and their advice on how to get the most out of it.

Remembering that everyone who is a part of The Marketing Academy are already recognised as high performers, perhaps what surprised me most was how much both sides of the coaching relationship were benefiting and growing. Oscar shared with me that he saw his role to “connect his clients with their passions for high impact outcomes.” The value of this was clear for all involved with some definite themes that came shining through.

Coaching is about getting results

Adam saw coaching as “turning inspiration into action” and therefore “the most important part of the process.” This was echoed by Heilan and Oscar who talked about how a focus on empathy for others and led to “better results really quickly.”
John talked about how he’d quickly seen Sharon move “from thinking to acting in a way that is true to her values” leading to increased self awareness and confidence.

Sharon’s focus was now on sharing and applying her learning with her team as well. This is leading to the quality of work improving through approaching things differently, framing questions in new ways and getting better answers for colleagues and clients.

It’s about transformation – an investment in yourself so that you can bring out the best in others

Transformation can at times be an overused word, however it was clear that in the case of these scholars and coaches it was apt. With the help of coach Michelle, Adam reflected that he had “been able to craft my own authentic vision, behaviours and goals which I have found both liberating and motivating.”

Sharon similarly expressed that she had been working on “my purpose and where I want to go, then figure out what my career looks like long term vs. just a couple of steps ahead.”

Once distance Oscar had observed in Heilan was moving to “true leadership so rather than looking at what's broken she's looking at possibilities and what can be created.”

It’s safe to be yourself

When I asked everyone how to get the most out of coaching the advice was clear - be real and be raw knowing that you are in safe space.

For Oscar part of this was “Just being comfortable with the pause. Getting to a place where you can go, OK if I stop, how does my thinking change?”

Michelle encouraged clients to “share fragile thoughts and feelings, allowing them the opportunity to be explored, road tested, and solidified. It takes real courage to go there, which in Adam’s case he has fully embraced and is a real pleasure to support.” 

Courage was a theme also all of the coaches seeing the scholars becoming more courageous whether it meant looking at things in a longer term perspective of in a personal context with Heilan sharing that when it came to her team “I'm being completely open and honest with them and I tell them about areas that I've been trying to work on.”

With courage came “more confidence around how I can best leverage my natural strengths” Adam said.

The Marketing Academy experience is unique

Adam expressed that as it being “rare that you are able to leverage someone’s impartial expertise with the sole goal of bettering yourself. It has helped me uncover my natural strengths, where I add value and what uniqueness I can bring and develop. ”

For Sharon, “allowing me to focus on me as a leader” has been valuable professionally and personally, while Heilan said being exposed to a different perspective “opens up your thinking in different ways. If you want to grow yourself as a person it doesn't even have to be about your career, just as a person I'd highly recommend it.”

Michelle sees that both the scholars and coaches are benefiting from The Marketing Academy being “an accelerated process”, with John sharing that he felt “I have gotten better as a coach through time with TMA” and that in turn he is applying this back at Lion Nathan. Oscar recommends TMA to coaches who want to “explore transformation coaching in a really focused way.”

In an earlier article I shared how Responsibility and Contribution were key leadership themes, Oscar sums all of this up perfectly.

“They're really trying to become the next generation of leaders, not just for their profession but for their society. The scholars understand the responsibility of leadership is creating leaders and not followers. I think that by volunteering for this program they innately look beyond themselves. They're looking to see what impact they can create for the future.”

Read more from the Marketing Academy:

The Journey so far

Leadership and the case for more chiefs

Words of wisdom from 30 marketers to watch

 

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