Operator's Manual

A few weeks ago I posted six Self-Coaching Guides, compilations of edited posts on the topics of Communication, Leadership, Motivation, Change, Learning and Happiness.  Those six topics--listed here in the order they were written--emerged from a review of my work on this site over the past 5 years.  As I sifted through more than 600 posts, I found that the ones with lasting relevance to my work as a coach sorted themselves into these topics.

I've continued to reflect on these topics and feel that they cover the full range of issues that come up with my coaching clients and students while also providing a useful overview of my perspective on effectiveness and fulfillment.

Three topics--Communication, Leadership and Change--address our effectiveness relative to our external environment:

• How do we communicate with others?  How can we express ourselves more effectively?
• How do we lead and manage?  How can we direct subordinates, influence peers and "manage up" more effectively?
• How do we deal with change?  How do we make change happen?  How can we adapt to--and create--dynamic circumstances more effectively?

The remaining three topics--Happiness, Motivation and Learning--address our sense of fulfillment relative to our internal world:

• What makes us happy?  Are we both professionally and personally fulfilled?
• What motivates us to achieve our fullest potential?  Are those drives contributing to our fulfillment?  And how do we respond when we feel demotivated?
• How do we learn?  How do we maximize our fulfillment as learners to insure that our skills keep pace with our challenges?

Rolling this all up into the graphic above creates an Operator's Manual for professional and personal development.  We need to look out and assess our effectiveness as communicators, as leaders and as change agents, and we need to look in and determine whether we're truly happy, truly motivated, truly learning--in short, whether we're fulfilled.

There's something meaningful here for me, and I'm considering making this framework the foundation for some ongoing work.  If you have any input, I'd love to hear it.

Comments

[Sally Reed]

I'm not 100% sure I agree with the chart layout (will need to think about that), but it's certainly thought-provoking, as are the six questions you outlined. Nice post.

[Ed Batista]

Thanks, Sally. The graphic is definitely a work-in-progress. (I often find it easier to think through concepts like this if I work up a visual representation as a part of the process. Which seems to fit with the idea that visual images enhance effective communication."

The main points I'm trying to convey in the graphic are:

1) Our effectiveness in any external environment is a function of our ability to communicate, to lead and to both initiate and adapt to change.

2) Our internal fulfillment is a function of our ability to understand what makes us happy (and act upon that understanding), to tap into and harness our motivation, and to engage in a continuous process of learning.

3) There's a dynamic boundary between the external environment and our internal world--what happens "in here" affects what happens "out there," and vice versa.

I don't think I've done a great job of conveying all that through the graphic, but it's a start. Thanks again for the feedback.