COACHING
The Year
That Was
By Thrity Engineer-Mbuthia
2
017 has drawn to a closure and
boy what a tough year it has
been. The external environment
in Kenya has been harsh and every
single citizen has been impacted.
The business environment has
been
particularly
challenging.
Setting targets, trying to forecast
for demand, understanding the
customer behavior when faced with
adverse conditions is all necessary to
survive. Sadly, the moaning and complaining
doesn’t get us anywhere. It might make us
feel better for ten minutes, and then it is
back to square one. One of the things that
is important for peace of mind, is to have
a mindset of moving forward. pay on time or in full either. There are
many clients who have defaulted and this
is causing Jacinta some sleepless nights.
Cash flow has become a serious problem,
and Jacinta is contemplating if she should
go back to formal employment.
There are things that you cannot change.
No matter how much you moan about
them, the control is not in your hands.
What can you control? You can control
how you react, or what you can do for
yourself. Let us take 2 typical scenarios
that you can probably relate to. The age old saying “When the going gets
tough, the tough get going’ really comes to
mind. It is one thing to remind ourselves
of a saying, it is quite another to actually
‘get going’. Human beings are more prone
to complaining about the situation. We
love to complain, and we love to moan.
Which reminds me of another saying –
‘misery loves company.’ Jacinta has recently quit her job to start a
finance and audit consultancy firm. 2017
is her second year of business. Jacinta was
convinced that there was a lot of work
available and was confident of getting
clients. This year, she has realized that
clients aren’t that easy to come by, and
those who have signed up don’t exactly Salil is a sales manager at a multinational
firm based in Nairobi. The firm’s
headquarters are in the UK and the
UK office has heard all about how the
economic climate in the country has been
impacted by the political environment.
Sales have been on a decline, distributors
are not placing the usual orders and Salil
has to not only find a solution, but find
it fast. Salil has been told to stop making
excuses and get the sales numbers up.
2017 has drawn to a closure and boy what a tou-
gh year it has been. The external environment
in Kenya has been harsh and every single citi zen
has been impacted. The business environment
has been particularly challenging. Setting targets,
trying to forecast for demand, understanding
the customer behavior when faced with adverse
conditions is all necessary to survive.
16 MAL21/17 ISSUE
Both Salil and Jacinta want to quit,
yet both of them feel stuck. Salil is
demoralized with his employer and
Jacinta feels self employment is not
working for her. Neither can change the
external environment but both can find a
way forward. Let us look at each in turn.
Jacinta meets a coach and decides to
sign up for some coaching sessions. The
coach works with Jacinta to understand
the challenges faced by the business. The
coach helps Jacinta to see how her client
base needs expanding to include corporate
clients. Jacinta doesn’t know how to
find such clients. Or so she thinks. The
coach helps Jacinta realize the power of
networking and how she can leverage on
her current network to help sign up more
clients.