Maintaining a strong focus on the outcomes you want to deliver will mean that you have a greater chance of success. Focusing your drive and energy on what you think is right will help give you a strong sense of fulfilment. But keeping an open mind can also be a powerful corrective. It involves knowing when to step back, being honest about your options, recognising what the breakpoints are and being ready to be surprised.
The pace of change is such that the right focus one year may become outdated by the next. Keeping an open mind is about being aware of changes in the external world, changes in your own economic and emotional well-being, changes in the perspectives of friends and family, and developments in your own preferences. Keeping an open mind does not mean keeping an empty mind. Allowing yourself to reflect on new ideas or approaches will enable you to keep an open mind. Accept that there will always be scope for developing the way you think and act.
Prianga had a track record of success in her job as a college lecturer. She was very single-minded and got excellent results from her students by driving them hard and expecting them to respond to her demanding approach in a thorough and responsible way. Her students had always done well and Prianga was very proud of her own accomplishments.
But her students' results began to stagnate and then fall back. Her demanding style was not as popular as in the past and she did not find it as easy to motivate her students. Prianga felt that her professional pride was being hit. The immediate effect was that she became even more relentless in the classroom and began to get more pushback than in the past. A good friend encouraged her to step back and reflect on what was happening to her students.
Prianga put her personal pride on one side and began to be more conscious of the effect that she had on her students. She very deliberately decided to alter her style, injecting some humour and more overt compassion. She allowed a greater degree of warmth to be shown in her teaching while keeping the same tight structure in her approach. The result was that her students' results began to go up again. Prianga was glad that the friend had advised her to step back and reflect on the approach she was taking. She was relieved that she had been open-minded enough to make adaptations to her approach that had the desired effect.
For some people, the best activity to help them stand back is quiet reflection, for others physical exercise and for others one-to-one dialogue or conversation in a group. What matters is that you decide what works best for you:
Are you best at stepping back alone or with someone else?
Who helps you stand back most effectively: is it a mentor, a coach, a family member, a close friend, a colleague?
What physically do you need to be doing to stand back: resting, sitting, walking, running?
How open are you when you stand back and how willing to modify your preferred approach?
What is your track record of being willing to stand back and change direction?
Being honest about your options is never easy. Some people fall into the trap of being perpetual dreamers, never spending long enough on an idea for it to crystallise and for the pathway to that outcome to become clear. For others, the risk is the opposite: they can be so focused on the day to day that the option to do something markedly different never catches their imagination or seems like a realistic option.
Keeping an open mind is about dreaming dreams. Let your imagination take you to new roles or new places, allow yourself to build on success and take opportunities when they arise. Be bold enough to keep climbing the mountain because you believe that there will be a fantastic view when you get to the top. Nevertheless, for those dreams to have relevance it is important to maintain a sense of reality, not to squash a dream but to 'give it legs'. What are the practical next steps necessary to help increase your prospect of success?
Being honest about the options is about raising your sights. Allow yourself to believe that there could be something good to follow on from what you are currently doing. Believe that you have talents, experience and expertise that others are going to value. Know that what you bring to the party is worthwhile, even if it may not be immediately recognised by yourself or others.
Are you honest about the options? Asking yourself the following questions can help:
If I have a tendency to dream dreams, how can I keep up the stimulus of new ideas and yet root them in what is realistic?
If I don't dream enough dreams, how can I allow myself to dream a dream or two?
What three or four options do I have about next steps in my job?
If I do not think I have any options, what would I like the options to be?
What do good friends think are the options?
What options would it be good to explore a little more?
What timetable would I like to set myself to be clearer about potential options?
What would being one step more radical than my natural inclination actually involve?
You can be in danger of thinking that whatever your current situation is, it will go on forever. But time moves on remorselessly and no team stays the same for very long. There are going to be comings and goings and financial situations will go up or down. People's moods will change. There may be a growing demand for what you do or demand may drop off in an unpredictable way.
It is often useful to take a hard-headed look at potential future breakpoints. A range of breakpoints could include the following: What might a new financial year mean for your business? What are the critical points when customer demand will mean that you have to make radical changes? What would be the effect of key people retiring or moving on? What will specific anniversaries mean for you in terms of length of time in a role or age? At what point are there likely to be significant changes in your domestic situation and what effect will they have: your spouse seeking to change their job or a youngster going off to university?
You may find it worthwhile reflecting on:
What are the breakpoints in your external world that are likely to affect you the most?
What are the breakpoints that matter to you in terms of your role, responsibilities and age and at which you want to take stock?
Do you want to set breakpoints for the future when you will re-evaluate your priorities?
How best do you respond to breakpoints and how do you want to prepare for them?
When I moved from being a director general in government into executive coaching, I had a clear plan. What took me completely by surprise was the opportunity to write books and articles. When I work as an executive coach with individuals at points of transition, I encourage my clients to develop a plan based on their strengths and the opportunities they see ahead, but I also encourage them to be ready to be surprised. New opportunities may present themselves, someone else might recognise a particular skill in them that they could use in new ways, and changes in the external world can mean that new, unexpected possibilities appear.
You might find the following a very practical set of questions to ask yourself:
