Ania Mitan, Senior Vice President & Managing Director at DIA

I was stepping into a new organization in a senior leadership role and wanted to make sure that I onboarded well in those first three months and that I. built trust out of the gate with C-suite, the Board and the growing team.  

The Challenge

Navigating the transition was the most challenging and I needed an injection of confidence. I was transitioning from pharma industry to broader healthcare ecosystem. I had the experience but now needed to translate that into the new domain and new ecosystem. 

There were two key parts I needed coaching on:

External Engagement

There were parts of the job that I had never worked on like policy development.  In terms of my new external stakeholder engagement role I needed to explore key questions with a coach:

How do I establish a trust level with external stakeholders working in more governmental, structured, expert roles? 

How do I, as a partner, bring my experience and the value of the organization to establish the common projects across this broader healthcare ecosystem?

Team Leadership & Culture

Then I also needed to lead a team and its development.  I was challenged by:

How do I transition from face-face relationships to virtual team collaboration? 

Then after covid how to bring people back into the office and build the team motivation that had been lost in a virtual context? How do I build the value of being together in person again and find the elements of shared interest.

How do I rebuild the team that is sitting in different parts of the world?  

The Solution

Through coaching with Shannon I realized the importance of having to build solid communication in my relationships with my CEO and the Board.  

We worked through one of Shannon's key tools, the Stakeholder Mapping tool, that helped me to take the temperature of the team members.  We co-designed a script for me to interview them and unpack their strengths and how to put these into action on the new team. I was also able to map each team members' strengths to the pathway for growth for the team and to reestablish ourselves as a team.

The Result

Having an onboarding coach like Shannon was invaluable and reassuring in terms of having someone I trusted to support me and challenge my thinking in my new role and company.

Through coaching I was able to realize that, whether internally or externally, the value of what I do or what my organization is doing, it is only as good as I can communicate it. That I needed to stay consistent in my communications with all stakeholders as well as in my own personal branding.   

Through coaching with Shannon I learned that:

1 - Being intentional and strategic really matters.  

2 - The stronger I am in branding myself across the channels of communication the better I am able to build trust.

3 - I could overcome imposter syndrome - I looked at the new challenge less through a lens of limitations or fear, but rather through a lens of opportunity to reframe my story.