How to move forward intentionally
Busy and successful people often hit a point in their career when they wonder, "what's next?" or "is it worth it?" or other easy-to-ask questions that can be difficult to answer fully. I recently worked with three successful executives who were asking their own versions of these questions for different reasons:
The new opportunity - a more significant role, with more responsibility - but is this really what I want at this time?'
The workplace conflict - where the boss was wilfully blind to the adverse impact on their team, especially demotivating driven and successful people who were now questioning 'whether it was all worth it?'
The lost mojo - repeated restructurings, downsizing and missing out on a promotion is draining. 'How to redefine the relationship with work to be more effective and, at the same time, more enjoyable again?'
It is ok and normal to ask these questions. There is no such thing as a perfect career. We don't start our careers and inexorably move forward in a straight upward sloping line as we gain in seniority and earn ever-increasing amounts of money. It is common and inevitable over a career to have bumps or sideways moves, get layered or plateau/stall, or, as I challenge clients to reframe it - consolidate.
The key is to take a step back, reflect and review - there are several different ways one might do this. Using more than one approach will better help the profound insights to arise as you are dared to think of alternative approaches and perspectives. I want to share two frameworks that I use to help clients answer these difficult-to-answer questions:
The Odyssey Plan - write out in detail your answers to the following three questions:
What your life will look like five years from now if you go down your current career path.
What your life will look like five years from now if you take a completely different path.
What your life will look like five years from now if money and societal obligations are not a factor?
Coaching for fulfilment - is an exercise using personal constructs to tease out our values and belief systems through:
Identifying meaningful relationships from the past.
The attributes, characteristics, attitudes and behaviours you observe in these people. What is the opposite for each one of these common elements?
A self-assessment to map yourself on the continuum for each one.
Using the insights, ask what changes will you implement in your life?
Another approach I recently wrote about is identifying your personal flywheel to discover your extraordinary combination of skills, interests, and values that make you different.
These can be deeply reflective experiences, especially when you work with a coach to double-click on the outputs to identify what is common, what surprises you, and what you are willing to do differently.
As one recent client said, she "learned a lot about myself and gained the clarity I would not have expected really possible."
Can you afford not to do the same?
📫 - Favourite quote
Coaching questions should be generative, taking the conversation forward and stimulating further thinking. Therefore this month, I will be sharing one of the most powerful questions I have come across:
"How am I complicit in creating the conditions that I say I don't want?"
Jerry Colonna (CEO Whisperer)
Write your answers down. The follow-up question, once you have a list, is to ask:
How do I benefit from each of them?
Primary ways?
Secondary ways?
🧐 - Newly discovered content of interest
If you are a fan of Michael Lewis and especially his seminal book "Liars Poker, " you should love this new podcast series "Against The Rules: Other People's Money", which is a companion to the new audio version of his book.
Liars Poker was published in the late '80s and required reading for those of us wanting to get into finance in the second half of the '90s. In this podcast, Michael Lewis explores, amongst other things, how investment banking has changed since he wrote the book.
🧾 - An absorbing and insightful (short) read
Personally, I feel the world will be a (marginally) better place if more people have skin in the game. Skin in the game has many applications. For example, never ask someone for their opinion on a particular company stock. Instead, ask them what they have or don't have in their portfolio.
More simply, never get on a plane if the pilot is not on board!
So I say bravo to Wired and The Verge when clarifying their guide for communications professionals.
"Corporate spokespeople who are paid to provide information simply don't meet the criteria for being granted anonymity...The companies you speak for play significant roles in shaping the future; we have a responsibility to tell our readers how we got the information about your plans to shape it."
In other words, we want you to take accountability for what you tell us - you need to have skin in the game.
🐣 - Something I am doing differently or entirely new
I continue to have the habit of writing in a notebook to journal, reflect, ponder, noodle and record what has happened. But a new year means a new notebook as I like to start each year with a fresh one. I am trying a different format. These are called "Productivity Sheets" from Intelligent Change, so they are a hybrid to-do list with space for writing concise notes.
Who has a physical notebook or journal that they swear by?
⚖ - Et cetera
Perhaps the following will provide insight and be of help with a problem you are currently facing:
Do you need a new perspective on a challenge you're struggling with?
Are you starting a new role and want to make a positive impact and quickly establish credibility?
My latest article is here - "Continuous learning, and why even coaches have a coach."
The RYSE Journal - 5* "Critical management tool" and 5* "Excellent practical self-coaching tool."
All the best, until next month.
Rob