By Susan Letterman White
Did you notice the picture with this post? Not everyone does. Some people have a natural tendency to jump to the words. Now, that I’ve brought it to your attention, what do notice? Take a moment. Take it in. I’ll come back to it in a bit.
Leading your business or yourself and career means motivating action. Action leads to change and change is the aim of any strategy. You plan and implement a series of actions to reach goals or increase your knowledge or ability to reach those goals. That is strategy.
Here are two examples. (1) A governmental department wants a more inclusive and equitable culture. What actions will it undertake to make that happen? By “it,” I mean who, with sufficient power, will do what by when and how. (2) Joey wants more a more organized and efficient law office. What will Joey do by when and how, to bring order and efficiency into each aspect of Joey’s business model, from marketing to workflow processes? In both instances, the people, who are expected to act are unlikely to overcome inertia without sufficient motivation.
What do you do to motivate? What can you do to inspire, when you or your team feels stuck? Psychologist, David McClelland, explained that people are motivated by their own internal desire to achieve, to belong or be affiliated with a particular group, to control with power. What motivates you? What motivates the people on your team?
Yet, even with motivation, there must be enough to overcome inertia. Everyone resists change or at least some aspects. It tends to feel like a loss or an unclear, confusing, or chaotic experience. We don’t normally seek those emotions and clouds over our observation and judgment. Consider adopting an adaptive perspective of experimentation and adjustment when leading and facing change. If you are coping with the uncertainty of a loss or the confusion and lack of clarity with change, knowing that solutions can’t possibly be obvious, opens the door to “trial and error.” This, begs the question of what to do if you feel stuck without a single idea of what to try.
In this situation, feeling stuck usually means you can’t see opportunities. One example is a leader without a vision. A vision is a longer-term direction based on a clear sense of purpose and its indicators and values. Without a vision, there are goals. It’s only when goals are distilled and detangled into discrete action steps in a particular direction that it becomes clear what to try. Leaders struggle with defining a vision in a way that is similar to a person who is unsure of what they want for a career. Not knowing what you want is the problem and nobody can answer the question for you. When you do not know what you want for yourself or your organization, then the solution is explore and do so in a way that expands or contracts your field of exploration. Then, go deep or go wide in any field you decide to explore. When you can’t find a field to explore, it usually means you are stuck in useless routines, repeating actions that are essentially the same or too similar for you to notice anything valuable.
Okay. Take another look at the picture. If not, expand or contract your field of vision. Do you see the image of an animal? There is cow, at least most sighted people eventually see the cow. If you know it is there, it’s easier to see. When we don’t know we are supposed to be looking for something, we may miss what is right in front of us. When we perceive by do not explore, we may not notice all that is there. When we explore “big-picture,” we may miss the delights of the details. When our field of perception is too narrow, we may miss the next best opportunity that is just slightly outside of that field.
Find all options that may address problems that seem unresponsive to your attempts to solve. When you are struggling to get enough new clients for your revenue goals or unsure about the career pathway that leads to your happiness, seek elsewhere and explore differently. If you are looking for a new job or new clients but keep “fishing in the same pond,” you may need to expand your search area. If you are connected to many prospective opportunities but not “getting them on the hook,” you may need to change your bait. Contract your exploration and focus on what you are doing, your strengths, and your limitations. If other people think of you as a generalist, it’s possible that the fit required is with a specialist with deep expertise in a limited area. Today’s world is packed with uncertainty and changing preferences by the people who have the power to hire you. Experimentation with adaptation is the solution and this begins with noticing more.
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