It is widely acknowledged that every company encounters challenges with managing its workforce. However, I assure you that there are always viable solutions to overcome any difficulties you may encounter within your company.
I am Marigeorgia Voskaridou, Career and Mindset coach, dedicated to empowering teams and individuals to achieve their personal and professional goals. Over the course of my journey, I have collaborated with a wide range of organisations who either had or were pursuing a clear vision and values within their strategy. Together, we have cultivated a collaborative and inclusive team culture, by prioritising the needs, skills, and aspirations of each member.
Organisations that recognise the value of enhancing their personnel are better equipped to navigate market challenges and remain competitive in the business arena. With the right support and guidance, employees can develop their skills, enhance their performance, and boost their self-confidence, thereby contributing to the company's holistic success.
I have always been an enthusiast of exchanging and sharing best practices, so it felt fitting to share the success story of my collaboration with the strategic marketing experts at Blackbook Agency. We started working together two years ago in an effort to elevate the team’s performance, resilience, efficiency, and job satisfaction. Aspirational goals for both the company and its individuals, these objective would be simultaneously challenging to attain and sustain over time.This is precisely why I am sharing this success story.
Blackbook Agency perceives its team as its most valuable asset. The marketing industry, known to be a demanding, fast-changing environment, requires dynamic personalities, critical thinking, problem-solving abilities, initiative and efficient communication skills among other qualities. These skills and characteristics can be developed extensively, through hands-on experience, personal development, continuous monitoring and constructive feedback.
Focusing primarily on a personalised approach which considers job position functions and needs, along with each person’s experience and acquired skills, we addressed any areas identified as crucial for improvement by the individuals themselves or by the management. As we started, each team member was asked to self-observe and keep notes on any difficulty they identified throughout the day-to-day operations. Moreover, once a month we have one-to-one meetings, providing individual with the chance to report and describe their needs and areas requiring improvement.
By collecting all this data, we were able to develop tailored-made trainings, featuring content that addressed their specific needs. These trainings also involved observing case studies and giving them practical tools. Training days are followed by individual coaching sessions, offering a dedicated time to reflect, re-think and reframe any difficulty or weakness, by switching the focus on possible solutions. Asking questions like “how” and “what” instead of “why” is the key to problem-solving. For example: “How can I do it better next time?” or “What could be done differently?”. The goal of our sessions’ is to create the mindset of finding ways to evaluate possible solutions based on the nature of the problem and, of course, efficiently communicating with both co-workers and clients.
Individual sessions with Blackbook’s executives shape a constructive approach to their development and enhance their professional performance. Through these sessions, they develop their personal skills and discover new ways to approach professional challenges. As their coach, I recognise each individual's unique needs, designing further personalised training and development programmes accordingly.
After two years of close collaboration and hard work it is clear to see that the team feels psychological security, knowing and trusting where to turn for support and encouragement. This in turn has led to greater dedication and heightened performance in their work. Simultaneously, the business benefits from a stronger team, ready to face any challenges that may arise.