How to coach a comeback story

Is your life sciences company ready for a great comeback story? Then you as a manager are going to need to coach a comeback player of the year. In essence, you need to help them to reinvent their career. To do that, you need some specialized tools in your reinventor’s toolkit.

When I advise the CEO of a life sciences or technology company about a derailed executive, I warn him or her that comebacks don’t happen overnight. But with persistent actions on the part of the manager/coach and the executive, it can happen. I have seen it time and again.


Meet Bill, Comeback Executive of the Year

Take Bill for example. Bill (real story, but not his real name) was president of a marketing entertainment business that is a subsidiary of an international company. The skills that enabled him to succeed early on in his career backfired on him, derailing him from his career track.

Bill was a driver. He was very achievement-driven and wanted the best for the company. He was willing to do whatever it would take for the team to be successful. Bill believed that the only thing in business is getting the job done. He believed that emotions do not belong in business and if someone can’t get the job done they need to be replaced.

When I met Bill there were quite a few negative comments coming from his direct reports. His boss at the parent company was being briefed on a weekly basis on what a horrible leader he was, and there was starting to be some turnover. So the boss called me and said, “What can you do?”

So I went in to see him and went over the entire process as an overview with Bill. We found during an initial assessment stage that Bill had no idea what leadership was about. He thought that leadership was nothing but results, and his results were outstanding. So his belief system was that as long as he got the numbers to work, he was okay.

What Bill came to realize is that he could get better numbers, and he didn’t have to be seen as a cold, distant, aggressive leader to do it. Truth was, Bill actually wanted to be seen as a personable, likable, engaging leader. He just never had a higher-up sit down with him and tell him how to do it. So Bill and I worked together for about six months and did a lot of work around him spending more time with each of his staff on a regular basis, asking about their career and really showing an ongoing interest in the welfare of each individual.

I shared with Bill a couple strategies for a comeback. One, you’re going to have to act for a while. The second thing is that I started off small. In psychology there is a model for behavior change called Successive Approximation. What that means is that if you want to change your behavior, you break the larger behavior up into smaller segments. You get the person to have some successes in small ways so that when they get to the big ways they’re feeling more comfortable.

So Bill and I started off about five minutes a day with just one of his direct reports, and that went well. So we added another one. Then we added team meeting, which he had never done. He learned how to make them more sociable, like by having food at the meeting. Bill did these steps on faith and then just started noticing that it was working. He was getting more positive feedback, and people were more productive.

Bill is a classic example of a derailed executive getting back on track with the help of a coach. He was such a great contributor, the management of his company just assumed he would make a great leader too. Wrong assumption. But with guidance, Bill made it back.

What will your obituary say?

Most people will not get to know what their obituary says before they die. However, there have been some noticeable exceptions.

There’s Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. In 1888, when his brother, Ludvig, died, a French newspaper thought Alfred had passed away and printed an obituary. The headline for his erroneous obituary read “The Merchant of Death is Dead.” The article said that Nobel “became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before.” Nobel, upon realizing that this was how the world would remember him, changed his will and gave all his money to set up the Nobel Prizes. He would associate himself with the Peace Prize.

(Another person who got to read his obituary before he died was PT Barnum of Barnum and Bailey Circus fame. When he was on his deathbed in 1891, Barnum remarked that he wished he could read his obituary before he died because the press always said nice things about him. So the New York Evening Sun obliged and printed his obituary a full month early.)

During a coaching session a derailed executive said: “I want my kids to be proud of me.” After reporting any negative behavior I would ask, “Would your kids be proud of you if they knew you were doing this?” When the answer was “no” he thought twice about acting in a negative manner. The result was a decrease in those actions that were derailing his career.

Why wait until you die? Get some 360-degree coaching right now. It’s going to be difficult to hear, but it will be more difficult for your people to tell you.

Three Tips to Avoid Hiring a Bad Life Science Exec

Of course, nobody likes to terminate an executive. So here are my three tips for avoiding the problem, taken from my book The Prodigal Executive.

Tip # 1 Hire Great in the First Place

By screening potential employees for past behaviors and attitudes, you can dramatically reduce the costs of hiring bad people, and make your workplace more productive, happier, safer, and more profitable. Combine an efficient prescreening assessment with an effective pre-employment background check, and you can cut your risk by half or more.

Tip # 2 Hire and Promote for Job Fit

A well-documented study, published in Harvard Business Review concludes that "Job Match" is by far the most reliable predictor of effectiveness on the job (Greenberg and Greenberg, "Job Matching for Better Sales Performance." Harvard Business Review, Volume 58, No. 5, Sept 1, 1980). The study considered many factors including the age, sex, race, education and experience of approximately 300,000 subjects. It evaluated their job performance and found no significant statistical differences, except in the area of "Job Match." The conclusion was this: "It's not experience that counts or college degrees or other accepted factors; success hinges on a fit with the job."

If success is determined by job fit, your challenge is to predict that fit. This requires that you measure thinking style, behavioral traits, and occupational interests, and that you do so in a cost-effective way. Assessments are an efficient way to predict job fit. With an assessment, an employer can assure that the people hired fit their new jobs; that the people promoted can succeed in the new position; that employees can identify a career path likely to work; and that newly opened jobs can be filled from within, with a high probability of success.

Tip # 3 Improve Managers and Keep Your Best People

People quit people, they don’t quit jobs. Guess which people they are most likely to quit? Hint: Managers have the most significant impact on a worker’s daily activities, the mood of the work setting, and the reward structure on the job.

Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your managers, and improving their most critical skills, is a key component of keeping your best people. In this economy, budgets for training have been curtailed, making it difficult to find the money to improve management skills. Many companies are concerned about wasting money on training employees that will leave. As author, salesperson and speaker Zig Ziglar said, though, “If you think it’s expensive to train people and lose them, try not training them and keeping them!”

Best wishes with coaching the derailed executives in your business. Unfortunately there will always be know-it-alls, bullies, prima donnas, and passive aggressors. But don’t tolerate them for one day. If they were exceptional once, then coach these prodigal executives to return to greatness.

The Prodigal Executive Now Available on Amazon.com

Some derailed executives create toxic workplaces that cause good employees to flee. Other former star employees cause customers and peers to complain in ever increasing numbers. So why not just fire them?

Ah, that is the dilemma. Often these prima donnas are extremely valuable employees. Some bring in millions of dollars to the company. Others have an irreplaceable specialized skill or body of knowledge.

So what is a company to do? According to new research, 8 out of 10 of these derailed executives can be coached to get back on track.

“Before you as a manager get involved in any kind of coaching of a derailed executive or employee, you should ask if this particular person has been given feedback about their obnoxious behavior" says Bruce Heller, Ph.D., author of “The Prodigal Executive: How to Coach Executives Too Painful to Keep, Too Valuable to Fire” (Author House, July 2009)

Dr. Heller reports that in two decades of experience throughout corporate America helping toxic bosses and star employees whose star has fallen, only about half have been given feedback on their errant behavior. He advocates these four ironclad coaching rules:

Ironclad Rule 1. When you do give feedback, make sure that it is data based, and behavioral based. Make sure it is not hearsay. For instance, what is the exact behavior the individual is showing that causes concern?

Ironclad Rule 2. Always use the sandwich technique. Open with positive feedback, then give the negative feedback, and then close with positive feedback. Work toward salvaging some of the self esteem of the individual, by saying :"You're quite a valuable component of our company. You're highly successful and we want to do everything we can to salvage our relationship. However, we have some concerns, and our concerns are: A B, C, D, and E."

Ironclad Rule 3. Your goal should be to gain some buy in from the individual. One of the mistakes supervisors make after giving some coaching feedback is that they don't schedule the next meeting. Before both of you leave after the feedback, say "Let's you and I meet next Friday morning at 8:30 am and let's continue this conversation."

Ironclad Rule 4. There needs to be some consequence so the person doesn't just blow off the feedback session. So you put the idea of separation out there. They need to know their behavior could lead to termination. If employees don’t have a consequence, they don’t take the coaching seriously.

In his book Dr. Heller explains how eight out of 10 derailed executives can be saved; six myths that hold many companies back from coaching; when to keep 'em and when to fire 'em; how to give feedback to toxic bosses and derailed executives; three keys to an executive comeback, and how to help derailed executives out the door if they really need to go.

Why Scientists Often Fail As Executives

One of my interests is working with scientists and people who have advanced degrees with a strong analytical bent (possibly because of my own background). One reason why I like coaching these technical executives is that these individuals make such a meaningful contribution. The common reality is that these individuals who are technical professionals are promoted because they were so good at what they did. One of my missions is to help them transition from the technical professional to a leader.

Many of them go into the science because they want to build things, not work with people. Management was probably something they did not study in college or grad school. For instance, there was Bill (real story, not his real name). Bill was a senior scientist who went through a coaching program after it discovered he did not have a calling for managing people. His request was to return to be a senior scientist and not continue to pursue a role of manager.

Bill ended up being very successful as a scientist and his experiment with managing people was a good experience. He now had clarity about his true career calling, and that management was not surely for him. His curiosity had been satisfied. Bill learned his course as a scientist he had his calling and he could focus on being the scientist possible.

The moral of the story is, technical competence does not always yield managerial competence.

All companies hunger for superstar employees. They hunger for superstar employees leads to promoting them into managers. Companies also hunger for superstar managers and leaders. In order to help a superstar successful transition from employee to manager without derailing they need to be coached.

But be careful. Many times superstars have a strong ego and are not aware of their need for help. So, one convincing strategy is to tell them the best get better by ongoing coaching and development. You need to sell them on the idea that to truly be set up to succeed they could benefit from coaching.

How Life Sciences Companies Prevent Executive Derailment

When a life scineces company conducts objective benchmark meetings, the company creates a culture that prevents executive derailment instead of trying to correct the derailment. I'm a firm believer that companies should have a 360 process on an annual basis for all of their managers and executives to make sure how they're doing. A 360 degree assessment is like going to your doctor for an annual checkup. The old adage is true that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

If a manager can see that an executive is derailing and get help to them early, then there is a higher probability that the behavior without can be corrected without significant damage to the organization, the culture or the individual's executive’s brand. Benchmarking with 360 degree management surveys and Web surveys is not that expensive to do. A company can begin with an outside source and after a while the managers can be trained to give the feedback.

Another pet peeve. Companies have a tendency to change their 360 degree feedback survey test on an ongoing basis. Typically a new HR person comes in or the manager hears of a new 360 and changes it. I'm not a big believer in changing which test you use, but I am a big believer in finding one that really works for the company and using it at least two or three times. Every time you change the 360 degree feedback survey you're starting off with a new baseline. If the managers keep switching the survey tools then the company won’t be getting any longitudinal data.

External coaches for life sciences executives

According to a study of 55 large companies (95% with annual revenues of more than $1 billion), organization that address derailment risks through the greater use of internal coaches report positive outcomes.

While almost all the companies use external coaches, especially for the C-level suite like CEO and CFO, about 60% were now using internal coaches. “External coaches often are used to ‘save’ an executive from failure when it's too late: like closing the barn door after the horse has already gone.” (McDermott, Levinson and Newton: “What Coaching Can and Cannot Do for Your Organization,” Human Resource Planning, June 2007).

The study went on to conclude that “using internal coaches in derailment cases, in contrast, may signal that the company takes performance issues seriously and is willing to invest the time of its own people, not just dollars, in supporting an employee's efforts to improve.” Never sell yourself short as an internal coach, because you may be better positioned to leverage other company resources and people to help solve the issues that led to derailment.

Time Is Not the Solution for the Toxic Boss

In life sciences companies, there is a misguided belief that time will work it out. The organizational hope is that the executive will eventually quit causing the pain, suffering and havoc.

Remember this movie line? "Someday this bitter ache will pass, my sweet. Time wounds all heels."

That Groucho Marx line, from the 1940 film "Go West", is more than the ingenious reversal of the popular cliche "Time heals all wounds.” There is a myth that trips up many life sciences companies who have an executive who is too good to fire and too bad to keep.

(By the way, Ann Landers, the most widely syndicated columnist in the world, is also credited with coining this phrase. In 1955, Eppie Lederer was a 37-year-old well-to-do housewife and mother who had never published a word when she entered a contest to write an advice column under the pseudonym Ann Landers in the Chicago Times. She beat out 27 other entrants, many of them professional journalists, with a column that began “Time wounds all heels” and went on writing for nearly 50 years.)

So the leaders do nothing. Typically the board of directors or the CEO doesn’t want to confront the pain-in-the-assets executive. This inaction does more harm than good, because silence is reinforcing the executive’s negative behavior (“If they aren’t saying anything, then what I am doing must be okay” they reason).

Typically I am called in when the company can’t wait any longer for time to wound the heel. They feel they have run out of options and the situation has reached a crisis because of problems like high turnover, customer defections and even lawsuits for misconduct like sexual harassment and hostile work environment.

Nope, time isn’t going to be the answer.

That was the case with Larry, a big guy with a gruff, gruff exterior. Larry was good at alienating people and creating the impression they knew nothing he knew everything about his area of specialization. Despite repeated warnings from senior executives, Larry was not changing.

In organizations, there are many ways to communicate symbolically. There are ceremonies, awards, logos, icons, contests and oft-told stories. And there are real-life leadership behaviors that “speak” volumes.

My showing up created two pieces of symbolic communications for Larry. One, he didn’t believe his job was threatened until an outsider showed up. I was not afraid to confront him and tell him that he was inches away from being shown the door. The other message he got from my presence was the company was willing to make investment in him to be a more effective leader, so he had better pay attention. Happily, in Larry’s case, he did pay attention and lost the negativity.

Performance Appraisals in the Restroom

Of course, it is human nature that people don’t want to give other people bad news. That is why there are expressions like, “Don’t shoot the messenger.” Deep down people want to be seen as likable, the nice guy or gal. Because they want to be nice, giving people negative, but necessary, feedback is the hardest thing for them to do.

The classic example is the senior life sciences executive who gave performance appraisals in the restroom. This manager would see the employee in the restroom and hand the person a folder with things they're doing well and not well.

Regardless of the reason, if you are a manager and you don't give somebody in your organization negative feedback, it borders on being unethical. You're carrying information the employee needs to know for their career survival. If that person doesn't succeed but could have if they had the information, then you as their manager have set them up for failure.

The other problem that happens in executive organizations is that the higher up you go, the less feedback you get.

In the words of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, the author of 19 books on leadership, “All other things being equal, your people skills (or lack thereof) become more pronounced the higher up you go. In fact, even when things are not equal, your people skills often make the difference in determining how high you go” (“behave Yourself,” Talent Management Magazine, July 2007).

The feedback a high level executive receives is so sanitized because of the politics it is of scant value. So many times executives, when they do finally get this level of feedback that they're potentially derailing, they're very surprised. And some of the comments are, "Well why wasn't I told this before?" And part of that is the fear of telling the boss there's a problem.

Prescription Before Diagnosis Is Malpractice

There is a saying in executive coaching that prescription before diagnosis is malpractice. In other words, it would be a breach of duty to treat the symptoms without doing tests to understand the root cause of the troubles.

There has been a great deal of media coverage in the last few years about the subject of malpractice. The most publicized forms of malpractice are medical malpractice by physicians and legal malpractice by attorneys, although malpractice suits against accountants (Arthur Andersen) and investment advisors (Merrill Lynch) have also been featured in the news.

How does this apply to coaching derailed life sciences executives? Without a clear idea of the person’s strengths and weaknesses, you are only guessing what is needed. This is no time to guess. Take the time to assess the true situation before you recommend a fix.

In my book The Prodigal Executive I included a lesson I learned from a derailed executive named John (real case, but not his real name). The telephone call from John’s manager was intense and anxious. The manager described John’s behavior as being hostile.

John would speak to people in critical ways. He would call people “stupid” and raise his voice when speaking with a peer on the phone in another part of the country. When I met John, he was somewhat distant, intense, and had that “big city” pushiness. John could not understand why he was being asked to work with a coach.

Furthermore, John could not understand why the others had so much of a problem with him. After a few coaching sessions, John seemed to become more positive. Suddenly he refused to have me interview his peers. John could not handle the truth. He did not want to know what others really thought of him and it was in fact difficult to make a diagnosis and develop a coaching plan.

His opposition regarding the 360 degree feedback assessment continued. This passive aggressive style defended against truly making a diagnosis and engaging him to make meaningful change. Not only was John derailing, he made sure he derailed the coaching during the assessment phase.

Should Joe Go? Toxic Life Sciences Executive Syndrome

Have you ever had a life sciences executive like Joe working for you?

Joe (not his real name) was a big guy, and very, very smart. He was a lawyer who was extremely valuable to the company and exquisitely arrogant. Joe thought he was the smartest one in the room at all times, and probably was right. On top of all that, he was extremely inappropriate to some of the female coworkers. Joe was too valuable to let go and too painful to keep.

Joe was ordered to my office for a company-mandated coaching session. He was extremely angry about that. Joe didn't like the idea of having to speak to somebody else like a consultant or a coach because he always knew more than they did.

"You know what? I'm really not going to change,” Joe bellowed at me in the first session. “I don’t want to change. I want to keep doing what I'm doing, and I will let the chips fall where they may. And, you know, if I get fired, I get fired."

My response to Joe surprised him. “Congratulations, because at least you are clear about what you want.”

The pleasure he got from his inappropriate interactions was stronger than the fear of getting fired. Really there was nothing an executive coach could do. So for me to continue with Joe really would not make sense. So I just wished him all the best.

Joe wanted to be fired. My opinion is that Joe was so narcissistic, and had such a sense of grandiosity, that he thought the rules didn't apply to him. So he felt that what he did was not inappropriate and didn’t see his behavior as harmful to others.

The second possibility is that Joe wasn’t happy in his job in the first place. So for him to continue to be inappropriate meant that he was going to lose his job. My guess is that was his underlying motivation.

Finally, Joe was the type that didn’t like dealing with authority figures, and didn’t want anybody to teach him now. In his case, old dogs didn’t want to learn new tricks. Joe was not coachable and therefore had to go.


How to Determine if a Derailed Executive is Coachable


Every poker player knows it doesn’t pay to play out every hand to the bitter end. After you ante and see the cards you are dealt, sometimes it is best to fold and minimize your losses.

Ah, but when? Knowing when to walk away from a valuable employee is one of the more complex and controversial areas of my practice because we are dealing with careers, not cards.

The first question that always comes up from a company leader with a derailed executives is, "Can this person change?"

My position with company leaders is always the same: “We never know.”

Because we never know what combination of events is going to help this person get motivated. Like the saying goes, don’t leave five minutes before the miracle.

Of course, there is always a healthy sense of skepticism that a derailed executive can change. The hiring manager or HR person has attempted many different fixes. Doubtless they have given the derailed executive feedback sessions, sent them to expensive classes, maybe even a 360 degree peer review. All this, and the person still has not changed for an extended period of time.

As one president who has dealt with his share of egomaniac employees cracks, “Let’s talk about world peace or something we can solve.”

The concern from a business standpoint is this: “Why should we invest all this money and time if the person is not going to change. Why take the risk?"

That's always the best place to start. Typically if the company really feels the derailed executive is uncoachable and they've already made the decision that the situation cannot be resurrected, then they don't call me. Instead, the company calls an outplacement consultant to help them fire the executive.

Sometimes the company leader says "We want to try one more thing before we pull the plug. We don't think the person is coachable, but we willing to give it at least one more shot."

This is what is called the “get fixed” ultimatum. Either this derailed executive gets fixed, or they get gone.

Determine If Coaching Is the Right Approach


What is the first test for a derailed executive to determine if they can be saved? Whether or not that are willing to go through assessment testing. If they are willing to go through the assessment phase then the next question becomes: "Is coaching the right program for them?"

There are many ways of determining this. As an executive coach, here are some aspects I consider:
1. Do they understand the feedback they've been given previously?
2. Have they ever had any coaching in the past?
3. Were they in competitive sports, and understand the concept of coaching?
4. Are they able to understand that the best get better through coaching and that the best sometimes go through a small derail?
5. How much arrogance do they really have?

If the derailed executive thinks they know everything and can do everything before I even talk to them, then this person is probably not going to get much out of the coaching.

Debunking the Myth About Omelets, Eggs and Derailed Life Sciences Executives

A popular myth is that executive turnover is inevitable in life sciences. To make a great biotech company you need to weed out the executive troublemakers, regardless of the value they bring to the company.

There is an old proverb that says you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. This means that in order to achieve something it is inevitable and necessary that something should be destroyed. Some credit New York Times Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter Walter Duranty with popularizing the phrase in describing Joseph Stalin’s rule in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. For the record, in Russian, the proverb is “when the wood is cut, the chips fly.”

So let the chips fly where they may. You can nickname this management style as churn, baby, churn. If the scientist or executive derails, then just get rid of them before it turns into a full blown train wreck.

This just doesn’t make economic sense, because life sciences companies today must compete to find, develop and retain top talent. Given the estimates that the costs of replacement of highly skilled workers and those in leadership roles can run up to 200 percent of the employees salary, the incentive for retaining talent is enourmous (Nowack, Envisa Learning White Paper, “Coaching Competent Jerks: Can Zebras Change Their Stripes?” 2006).