Coaching

Do you have a problem or a situation?

Problem: has a solution. Can be solved. Requires brainstorming, problem solving, strategy.

Situation: how it is. Not solvable right now. Requires empathy, recognition, acceptance.

Sometimes we think we have problems but actually have situations. Maybe we can tell if it’s a problem by considering if we are willing to hear advice or not. If not, it’s likely a situation and we need to treat it like one.

Maybe someone will come to you with a “problem” but it’s actually a situation. Recognize it and respond appropriately.

Inspired by Seth Godin’s Akimbo podcast below where he explains this concept in more detail.

Talent-Job Alignment

Parts of our job align so tightly with our talents that we can effortlessly excel and perform well

Other parts feel like the worst things in the world to work towards. Kind of like picking up dog poop.

What if you took the core competencies of your job (bonus points if you get your leader’s input) then considered how your talents (recommended Top 5 Report from CliftonStrenghts) can feed into those competencies.

This is great if considering a new job or if evaluating your current job. What is required of the job and how could you use strengths to meet (and hopefully exceed) those requirements.

You might notice a job has little alignment to your talents…consider steering clear of that one.

Maybe you see that your talents would have to be honed and refined (raw vs. mature) to meet the needs…do you want the challenge?

Maybe you realize areas you align almost perfectly in some areas…bask in the goodness and consider some gratitude.

I’m considering creating a worksheet to help with this process…pulled some ideas from a few Gallup blogs linked below:

Does a Specific Career Best Match My CliftonStrengths Results?

How to Improve My Career

Politics at Work: “Cognizant but Don’t Embark”

Understand the politics do not play in the politics because the worst thing that can happen is you’re labeled as political, which is a dead nail. So please do not embark and playing the politics. Just be cognizant of the politics.

Indra Nooyi on Adam Grant’s Podcast, Taken For Granted (approximately 37:35 timestamp)

This is from Part 2 of a two part series of interviews by Adam Grant with Indra Nooyi, the former chairman and CEO of Pepsi Co. Both interviews are worth a listen and specifically this concept of being cognizant of politics but not embarking on politics in the workplace.

Balance between being aware but not engaging. What a dance to do.

Post-StrengthsFinder Worksheet: Define-Apply-Grow

When someone is looking to grow or make a change, I often suggest they start with strengths.

You can use a tool like StrengthsFinder/CliftonStrengths just be sure that the assessment doesn’t speak for you. Instead make it your own. Validate, dispute, and add to your results.

This Define-Apply-Grow Worksheet is valuable, putting StrengthsFinder results in your own words and build specific action or goals.

List your Top 5 results.

DEFINE them. Put the theme in your own words. Give real world examples of how you’ve seen it show up.

Next consider how you can APPLY each theme. Where is it within reach to try out right now? Not about growing or expanding it but simply where in your current work, practice, life, can you put it into reality? Think of this like gluing it on the page of your life or paper clipping it to another activity you already do.

Lastly start to clarify how you can GROW each theme. What can you do to take it from Raw to Mature? What can you practice outside of your current scope of work? What new habits can you develop? Is there any knowledge you need to use this theme more?

I usually recommend people work down the page. DEFINE each of your themes. Then move to APPLY, then to GROW. Often there are substantial theme dynamics at play and so two or three themes might have overlap.

Do not feel the pressure to get something written in each box on the worksheet. What is important is to get 1 or two goals out of this and then treat it as a working document. Come back to it and go through it again at some point. Momentum and action is the goal, not filling in all the gaps!

You can download the worksheet HERE

It can be helpful to do this process with a coach…a supporter, question asker, ally who helps you clarify. Carnival Group has coaches trained and ready to help with this. Reach out and we’d love to chat.

Is that you or the assessment speaking?

I’ve found this question a valuable one in coaching and just talking over personality assessments with friends…”Is that you or the enneagram/StrengthsFinder/(insert your favorite assessment here) speaking?

When someone says something that is a little too spot on to be true, it’s a good question to ask.

When we ourselves are assuming a lot about ourselves or someone else based on an archetype we should ask this.

The assessment should serve us, not we serve the assessment.

We do this when we don’t recognize the assessment as a shortcut. It’s a shortcut to quicker understanding or quicker connection.

That can be massively useful! But it cannot be used as a crutch to avoid experiencing another person as they are or doing work to understand our own motivations and personality.

What’s better than an assessment is a walk and talk with someone else or a phone call.

What’s better than an assessment is creating a rhythm of journaling or another reflective practice.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good assessment. I’m a big advocate for the enneagram, the StrengthsFinder, and the DiSC but they are shortcuts. Useful shortcuts at certain times but still shortcuts which bypass the real work often needed. A little knowledge can be dangerous.

Initially inspired by Seth Godin from his Akimbo podcast episode “Spirit of Ecstasy” (Go to minute 28:00). He points out that personality tests can be used as a shortcut to actually get to know someone and build intimacy.

Per an academic paper in International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, strengths assessments can lead us down a path that is not congruent with our true selves, especially when we may learn something not totally true, it can be tough to unlearn it. In order to ethically use these assessments, we must create a space for ourselves and others to “dispute, validate and add to their test results.”

A little knowledge can be dangerous

Curiosity is a powerful force and one that I recommend investing into, flexing often, and encouraging in others.

That curiosity, when used as a shortcut can be a dangerous thing.

We can read one article on something and assume we know more than we actually do.

We can hear someone’s type or style on a personality assessment and quickly assume a lot about them.

We can realize the complexity of a systemic problem and immediately be frozen from action because all options visible to us don’t appear to solve the problem.

Curiosity alone is not enough. We must flex our muscles of humility and drive along with it.

Humility that the little info gained does account for the entire lot. Realization that there is more to the person than a basic archetype (no matter how true that archetype may be for us). Acknowledgement that a systemic problem must be addressed through struggle to find an outcome.

Drive to seek out more information to truly validate a hypothesis. Stamina and care to get to know a person rather than place them in a box. Tenacity and grit to wade through the complications of systemic problems and come out the other end rather than avoid entering the muck.

A little information is good. It is the beginning unto more.

We don’t need to become experts in it all but our curiosity must have co-conspirators of humility and drive on the journey to improvement.

Inspired initially by reading Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline where he shows that systems thinking can cause us towards inaction but must instead drive us towards resolve.

Also inspired by applying this to personality tests/assessments by Seth Godin from his Akimbo podcast episode “Spirit of Ecstasy” (Go to minute 28:00). He points out that personality tests can be used as a shortcut to actually get to know someone and build intimacy.

Start Stop Continue

A great mechanism to make an action plan to make a behavior change. At the end of a reflection process, coaching session, meeting, you can write down what you will start doing, what you will stop doing, and what you will continue doing.

For example, I read a recent article on making diversity more than a business case and here are my Start Stop Continue in follow up:

Start: Clarifying and sharing my own personal motivation to work on equality initiatives.

Stop: Accepting the business case for diversity as enough motivation to make change occur.

Continue: Encouraging people in coaching and other situations to create person vision statements and emphasize the importance of this.

It works because it’s easy to remember and gets to the heart of change, behavior and rhythms.

Don’t forget: More like jazz. Less like classical.