Questions for Effective Change
Elaine was one of my first career coaching clients. It was early in our relationship that she gave me a big insight.
Elaine wasn’t happy in her first job out of college. She wanted a change. I suggested to her that she imagine an ideal day five years in the future.
Her shoulders slumped. “That’s what all the books say,” she said, dejected, “but I just can’t do that. I don’t know how.”
That stunned me. Imagining that ideal day was an exercise that lots of career coaches used. It was my starting point for thinking about my own career. So I thought it would work with anyone.
And I knew that Elaine wasn’t kidding me. I was sure she had tried the technique, probably two or three times.
She was bright and committed to changing her life. The technique I thought would help her do that didn’t work. It was up to me come up with an exercise that would help.
I got lucky. That evening I got together with my friend, Terry, for one of our regular, what-are-you-up-to sessions.
Terry was a research scientist and not someone I’d normally ask about things like this, but the situation was fresh and I was frustrated. I was stunned when he said, “I think I’ve got something for you.”
Terry had discovered some research on innovation styles. It told him that there are four common questions that people ask when they want to change. One of those was “What’s my goal?” which is the academic version of “Imaging an ideal day …”
There were three other questions: “Who’s important to me?”; “What should I do right now?” and “What would be fun to try?” It turned out that the right question/exercise for Elaine to start with was “Who’s important to me?”
Terry also told me that most people only ask one or two of the questions. That’s important because the people and organizations that are good at change ask three or four.
Elaine couldn’t start by defining her goal, but once she started thinking about who was important to her, some goals just seemed to bubble up from her soul. Asking the other questions on the list helped sharpen the answers to all the questions.
Which brings me to why I’m writing about this. If it’s time to make a change in your life, ask all the questions. It will improve your odds of a good outcome. Here they are again.
What’s the goal?
Who’s important to me?
What should I do right now?
What would be fun to try?
October 15th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I’ve been in “knowledge worker” jobs most of my adult life and have repeatedly risen to high managerial, if not C-level, positions, without ever having been able to answer that “ideal day” question. In part, it’s because I’m one of those people who had to sacrifice any idea of what I _wanted_ to do to the necessity of supporting my family. I’ve never really had a lot of personal stake in my jobs other than a basic ethic of wanting to do my best, but paradoxically I think that has freed me to take risks and that is why, by many people’s standards, I’ve succeeded. But I’ve been stumped by the idea of long-term goals all my life: personally, because it makes me too sad to think about, and professionally, because I just didn’t get it. Your little checklist is helpful if I can just keep the focus on what is expected of me where I am, right now, and keep personal desires out of it. Thanks.
November 16th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
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