My Approach
… is complex, but not complicated. It has two foundational premises: 1) Begin with the end in mind and 2) Take the whole person into account.
The first premise is based on a solutions-focused framework. In some circles, it’s called, design thinking. In other words, we design a desired outcome and reverse-engineer the process back to square one (where we are now) and start working from there to get to the pictured end. This is an exciting phase. This is where we brainstorm the possibilities. We’ll engage the full spectrum of analysis and synthesis, divergent and convergent thinking, block logic and step logic, creativity and practicality. In this process, we will co-create and design your best life. At key milestones along the journey, we’ll revisit the original vision and do a real-time update on where we are, so we can gauge our progress. This is a dynamic, powerful time, simultaneously punctuated with self-discovery, awareness, tension, frustration, and a host of other thoughts and emotions that will eventually produce breakthrough.
The second premise is equally as important and integral to our approach as the first. We will engage both at the same time. The most effective and efficient way to create accelerated breakthrough is using a concept I learned in my many years of military training and praxis called force multiplication. In terms of strategic warfare, it involved penetrating a sphere or theater with multiple points of entry – by air, by land, by sea, for the sake of simplification. We humans are complex beings. By taking the whole person into account as we create a vision and goals for your life and career, we’ll be attending to all of you – your head, heart and guts (neuroscience calls these three intelligences the cephalic brain, the cardiac brain and the enteric brain). Many times in life, people find difficulty achieving breakthrough because, “My head says this… but my heart says this… and I’m not sure if I have the guts to…” This dissonance is a large factor in being stuck in life, and hinders breakthrough. We’ll work on creating alignment – convergence – between the three, and you’ll be amazed at the discoveries you’ll have! When we go here you’ll never be the same person again!
Another aspect to force multiplication is called attention density. This is why coaching is so critical, over and above training. A recent study of the didactics of training and coaching as effective disciplines for permanent transformation revealed that with training alone, organizations experienced a 28% success rate in achieving permanent behavior change leading to desired outcomes. But, when combined with coaching, the behavior change leading to desired outcomes was 88%! Because we’ll be highly engaged over a course of months during our partnership, we will reinforce our goals and plans by “keeping the main thing the main thing.” We will multiply our forces by employing:
- Varying learning media (reading, audio, video, conversation, exercises, real-life experiential events).
- Taking into account the different intelligences you employ to make decisions on a daily basis (cephalic – mind, cardiac – emotions, enteric – willpower) and teaching you how to use all three to solidify your transformation.
- Different assessment or psychographic tools that will measure your emotional intelligence, your values, your information processing and communication styles.
- A systems-thinking bias that will help you see how you fit into the world you live in, and how to design your life and career path with a keener understanding of your organization and the other key players in your workaday world. Peter J. Drucker, now deceased world renowned management guru once said, “Culture eats strategy for lunch.” Having a solid understanding of the real culture of where you work (not merely the stated culture) will carry you a long way to figuring out how the authentic you fits into the big picture, and why certain strategies, although they may sound good, are not working.