Coach Talk Column: For growth attitude is everything

On the phone, I was so glad that I forgot to thank his boss for thanking me. However, I told him that Sittisak was a really good person and the company had made the right decision.
This phone call actually reminded me about Sittisak, who I coached for the last several months. I still clearly remember one day in the early morning when I got a phone call from a human-resources director from my client organisation asking me to meet with her regional chief executive officer, as there might be a coaching assignment opportunity for me.
I arranged my time to visit the CEO. We spent about an hour together. The CEO had asked me to help coach Sittisak – then financial director – and gave me some background about Sittisak.
Sittisak had been working with the company for about 15 years. He had been rotated to many key functions in the organisation. He was sharp and friendly; his personality was great. About two years earlier, he had been informed that he was identified as a candidate for general manager. Unfortunately, when the time came he did not get picked for the GM position. Sittisak was down; he was obviously losing his confidence and “mojo” at work. His performance dropped significantly, his attitude and behaviour changed vividly. Everybody in the organisation talked about him, some people even thought he might quit some time soon.
The company still saw Sittisak’s value and was afraid of losing him. Therefore, a coaching assignment was initiated.
I agreed to coach Sittisak and a first session to meet with him for a chemistry check was arranged. After that we had a few coaching sessions together.
In one of our sessions, we had a great discussion:
“I might be leaving soon,” Sittisak told me.
“Why?” I asked.
“I am a loser and don’t think I would like to work here anymore. I can’t deal with questions people ask me and the way they look at me,” he said.
“Khun Sittisak – if you leave now, would you be a winner or a loser?” I challenged.
“…”
“Khun Sittisak, suppose that you had been spending time, money and effort making a product for sale and you ended up not being able to sell it at your first trial. What would you do?” I broke the silence.
“I would figure out why I could not sell it or why the customer did not buy it.”
“Would you get angry with the potential customer who did not buy your product?”
“No!” he replied.
“Why not?” I continued.
“We have no right to do so. The customer has the right to buy or not – if they do not buy, it is not their problem, it is actually ours.”
“Would you throw your product away?”
“No, definitely not,” he said.
“Would you walk away from this potential customer and find someone else?” I continued my questions.
“Not at the first trial – persistence is very important if we want to win,” he said.
“Excellent! Khun Sittisak – now come back to yourself. Weren’t you a product? Didn’t you spend time, money and effort investing in yourself for the whole of your working career? Wasn’t this disappointment the first sale trial which was not quite successful?”
“….” He was in silent mode, nodding his head without saying a word.
“If so, why did you decide to give up? Correct me if I am wrong, you did not want to be perceived as a loser, did you? And you just told me that in order to win, persistence is the key, right?”
He continued nodding his head. I then asked, “What would you do to be a winner?”
He was thinking for a short while and slowly but firmly replied, “Attitude is everything! I must get myself stronger, I need to figure out why the first trial failed; I have to make my product better and I will persist.”
Eight months after this conversation, I got the phone call from Sittisak’s boss as stated above.
He had made his effort and walked his talk.
Congratulations, Khun Sittisak, if you are reading this article – I would like to let you know that “You are the man and you deserved it!”

Apiwut Pimolsaengsuriya is executive director of Orchid Slingshot. Write to him at [email protected]