Transition Coaching (Team) Case Study: Girl Scouts - Louisiana East
The Girl Scouts - Louisiana East was chartered by Girl Scouts USA in 1922, and has been serving their community ever since. Their mission is to build girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place. They do this by providing girls with leadership and team building, entrepreneurship skills and opportunities for community service. Until recent years, the council oversaw the Girl Scout operations in their local area of Louisiana, as a branch of the national organization.
Shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck the area in August 2005, Girl Scouts USA decided to save money and merge councils throughout the United States. In Louisiana, they were merging three councils; each of which had a very unique flavor – one was more Cajun, one was more urban and the other was a combination.
Not only were there cultural considerations, but the people on each team had existing roles and responsibilities that were being merged and combined, with people coming together to form completely new teams. In some cases, jobs were lost, and in other cases, jobs were created.
One of the executives on the council knew Kirsten Allen, and they became reacquainted at a local networking event. Both decided that Kirsten’s coaching services were an excellent fit. They hired her immediately to facilitate staff meetings and keep the staff informed, and to support everyone in the early stages of the transition when there wasn’t much information available yet.
Over the next four months, as the new structure of the organization began to take shape, Kirsten helped to build cohesive teams within the council to meet the expectations of the organization’s progression.
On a large scale, she worked with the executives to identify and clarify the fundamental issues that underlined the crisis of the changes. In particular, she identified three different teams that were struggling, and supported them to create action plans. She provided concrete strategies and team building, and coaching individuals were having specific challenges that were holding back the cohesiveness of the team.
The Council was extremely grateful for Kirsten’s skillful support, and Christy Reeves, Former CEO, had this to say:
Kirsten has been an invaluable resource in supporting the Girl Scouts Audubon Council to transition and help us as we reorganized and moved to the next level. Kirsten has the rare ability to identify and clarify the fundamental issues that underline the day-to-day crisis in the life of a non-profit. Her coaching, with built-in follow-through and ongoing support, has helped the staff to see possibilities that created change within their methodology. With her gentle, yet firm direction, her clarity of our purpose and a strategy to translate our vision into reality, make her services priceless. I would highly recommend Kirsten to anyone who would like to become more focused, use their time more efficiently and invest in their visions so that they may come to pass.
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