Helping yourself get unstuck

What are you supposed to do to get your teams unstuck?

This time I’m going to give you some concrete advice to get yourself and your teams unstuck.

In my previous two posts (here and here), you’ll know that your teams might be stuck and as the leader you have contributed to that. In those situations, groups and individuals work to protect themselves while also trying to enhance their position (as a tactic to further protect themselves). They will also withhold or distort information that might make them vulnerable.

Instead, you need to approach the situation with a different mindset. Guide your behaviour by a different set of values, only then will you get different outcomes. I want you to value:

  • valid information
  • free and informed choice
  • internal commitment to the choice and constant monitoring of its implementation

And you value those things not only for yourself but for others. This means that you’ll include others to explore issues, uncover information, and design solutions.

And you may say that you already behave in that way and value those things. But you don’t.

Because this isn’t the way almost anyone is raised. It isn’t the thinking our education systems teach. And it isn’t the way our organisations are structured to promote. It takes conscious effort to enact these values.

Once you do, though, you’ll surprisingly quickly start to address many problems that you previously thought were just unsolvable. Or see possibilities that just never existed before.

All it takes to start is to write down a conversation you’ve had recently that didn’t work out how you wanted. You don’t even need to write down the entire thing, just a few statements that you think are relevant will do.

Fold a piece of paper in half from top to bottom. You now have two columns: left and right. Write your conversation, as best as you can remember, in the right hand column.

In the left hand column write down what you were thinking and feeling. Be honest. Nobody else will see this. What were you thinking about the situation and didn’t say?

Did you think that the other person was bull-headed? Stupid? Unbelievably naive? Were you feeling angry? Frustrated? Helpless? Elated?

Now write down what you intended to achieve with the conversation and what you actually achieved.

We’ve finally reached the difficult part. Reflect on how what you achieved differed from what you wanted to achieve and how the conversation might have gone differently.

  • Is what you wanted to achieve even possible? Does it conform to the values I stated above?
  • What did you withhold that was relevant to the discussion?
  • Are your emotions relevant? Hint: sometimes they are, sometimes they are not
  • What assumptions were you making and not testing? Hint: if you believe something about someone and don’t ask, then you are not testing the assumption.
  • How many questions did you ask?
  • Of those questions, how many were genuinely seeking new information?

Useful Resources:

Leave a comment