I had the incredible experience of coaching a team of female employees who work for a small organization on the west coast of California.

This small group of women met with me weekly after the manager came to me with the problem: these staff members were working at cross-purposes, not getting along, some feared their manager but most of all, there were definite personality conflicts.  And it was getting in the way of effective counseling and coordinating and what’s more, had the potential of affecting the people they were serving.  The manager asked if I might be able to use my life coaching skills to create a much-needed change.  If not, she feared one or more staff members would have to go.

What might have been evident was to address the personality issues from a human resource management perspective (personnel policy, productivity at stake, and the like).  But this was coaching.  So, I asked each person in the team to share with the rest of the group about any challenge they had outside of work.

Each person talked about another challenge, honestly and openly.  As a result, empathy and compassion developed within the group.  They related to each other as people, fallibly human beings who had issues in their own lives that weren’t always devastating but often shook each of them off balance.  We talked about how challenging it is, in today’s demanding and fast-paced world to balance one’s life with work and family, self-care and a sense of well being and inner peace.  This sharing strengthened the group because they found commonalities, like strings of life that tied them together – similar desires, and in competing demands in their lives.  They encouraged each other, gave each other ideas, described how they each resolved a parallel situation.  They looked forward to this type of get-together each week.

Conversations ranged from how they learned to leave work at work and sit down with their families to eat a meal together.  They learned that they weren’t the only ones who had problems setting limits with their children or being clear with a loved one.   Without my involvement, they began going to lunch together, calling each other outside of work and their relationship with their manager improved considerably.  Everyone was a valued team member and everyone counted. They spoke respectfully about differences.  And before I expected, I was told I had done my job as a life coach.  It only took five or six weeks. They were coached into increased productivity, a more pleasurable work environment, they got the bonus of friendship, a good relationship with their manager and this team was able to concentrate on the people they served.