The Client: John, Vice President of a large engineering consulting firm The Circumstances: John had virtually grown up in the engineering consulting firm in which he worked – starting fresh out of college and spending nearly 25 years as a key contributor to the growth of the firm. His career had advanced with ease and he was leading one of their largest business units with over 85 people reporting to him. When his mid-size company was acquired by a very large organization, a period of drastic change commenced. Through a sequence of lateral position shifts, John’s entire section of the company was blown apart, leaving John in a role with significantly reduced roles and responsibilities. As the year unrolled, the nature of John’s conversations with the new executive team left John questioning his leadership skills and his entire history of career success. The Story: Reflecting Back: “That whole year really knocked me off my feet. For the first time in my life, I felt a lack of confidence in my skills and everything I thought I was good at,” John shared. “All those years of consistent positive feedback, grounded with a steady climb up the ladder – and suddenly I was getting new information that was completely contradictory to my past experiences.” John added, “As my new role was defined, leaving me with little to no management responsibilities, I was feeling deflated and disconnected from where the company was going. I had always thought I would retire from this company. I found myself questioning my whole career and was suddenly unsure what I wanted to do with my life.” That’s when he reached out to Kami Guildner at Syzygy™. Despite the fact that John knew he had been completely thrown off balance in the months prior, he still approached coaching with a bit of apprehension. John recalled, “When I was driving to that first meeting I asked myself, ‘What am I doing – I’m a middle-aged, grown-up professional. Why do I need a coach?!” But that apprehension quickly dispersed as John and Kami started to work together. “Kami picked me up off the floor and helped me regain my confidence, which I had always had, but had somehow lost in that past year,” he said. “As we looked at the essence of me from all sides, I particularly found the peer feedback impactful. The people who knew me best – who had worked most closely with me over my career – consistently ranked leadership as one of my number one strengths. As it turned out, many of my old employees wanted to follow me wherever I went. It was really enlightening, especially since this was completely contradictory to the feedback that’d I’d been getting from my new leadership team.” (story continues at http://syzygy-co.com/coaching/seasoned-executive-hurdles-over-an-ma-bump-in-the-road/) “My mind was set at ease immediately” he said. “As I began to share the stories of my career and examine the circumstances around each one – I had made a very positive and important contribution to each of these! Kami’s inquisitive approach to coaching is really insightful and reflective, and reintroduced me to the John that had somehow gotten lost in the shuffle.” Finding John Again: During those first few months of their weekly meetings together, the pair reconnected to John’s strengths, core values and overall interests – creating clarity around “the Essence of John,” and all that he stood for in his many years of career success.