Case Study #3 – Business Transformation Leader
Background
Sophie T., a business transformation leader at a Fortune 500 financial services firm, had built a distinguished career guiding senior executives through digital transformation, operational restructuring, and high-risk strategic initiatives. For the past two years, she’d served in the inviable role of trusted advisor to the CEO and several top executives on all matters related to business transformation.
Her insights were sought after when the organization faced complex, high-stakes, volatile circumstances. She had earned deep credibility and influence from the top, and yet, Sophie knew there was still other heights to reach professionally.
It wasn’t about gaining more confidence—she had plenty of that. It wasn’t about learning new frameworks or processes to use—she was well-versed in them all. Sophie had mastered the technical elements of her field, and her emotional intelligence was strong enough to build good working relationships with almost any executive. Despite these accomplishments, she sought new ways to sharpen her ability to create value at the highest levels of leadership.
She had heard about the ATA for years, but it wasn’t until two respected colleagues raved about their experiences in the program that she decided this was the next-level development she had been looking for.
The ATA Experience
As soon as Sophie met the other members in her cohort, engaged with the course material, and experienced Daryl Conner’s facilitation, she knew ATA was different from any professional development she had participated in before.
She was surrounded by high-caliber change professionals who, like her, had already achieved significant success but were still driven to push their craft further. The depth of the material, the intensity of the discussions, and the rigor of the self-examination all confirmed that she had made the right choice.
Determined to squeeze every ounce of learning from the program she could, Sophie committed to:
- Arriving fully prepared for each session—having thoroughly reflected on the pre-readings, analyzed how the topics applied to her own work, and identified key questions to explore with the cohort.
- Listening intently to how others in her cohort framed their challenges and how Daryl drew from his decades of experience as a High Impact Trusted Advisor (HITA)
- Pursuing how she could more effectively capitalize on using her unique charter and presence to create value for the leaders she served
- Allowing herself to be vulnerable, i.e., exploring how to mitigate her liabilities and better leverage her assets and openly sharing her personal reflections on what it meant to her personally to pursue mastery at the highest levels
Sophie found the undertaking to be both exhilarating and daunting. At times it reinforced what she already knew but did so from a deeper perspective, but often it stretched her in unexpected ways.
Real-World Impact
Sophie entered ATA with big questions about how to elevate her craft to a mastery level. She left with powerful discoveries and practical adjustments she could make to her interactions with leaders, and she also gained a deeper appreciation for how mastery is an ongoing journey, not a destination.
In particular, the program’s introspective focus and encouragement to refine her approach recalibrated and energized her. She felt more prepared than ever for the complexities of working with senior leaders, as her ability to build rapport, anticipate and address executive concerns, and create lasting impact had advanced significantly. Even with these milestones, she said completing the program seemed more like the beginning of a new era of learning than a terminal objective.
Sophie didn’t come to ATA to fix deficiencies—she came to add to an already solid foundation. Ultimately, she walked away having attained the learning objects she started the program with, but she also found new dimensions of growth to pursue that she had never considered before.
“Before attending ATA, I was excelling but getting stale. I’ve now have new limits to push up against that have recharged my batteries,” said Sophie.
