Here's one short leadership coaching tip you can action immediately. Today's post takes about 2 minutes to read. I think this post contains a great example of what leadership is.
Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash
The Tip
Do you ever suffer from if-only-itis?
If only I had more time! If only I had a faster computer! If only I had a bigger team! If only I had a bigger budget!Sound familiar?
We're all guilty of this. Of waiting for the perfect moment, or the perfect conditions before we start working on a problem or towards our goals.
If you find yourself doing this, try asking:
What if money was no problem? What would I do then?
Allow yourself that thought experiment and write down the things you would do, the problems you would solve and the actions you would take. Then ask yourself:
What if I had no money at all? What would I do then?
What you will find is that many of those actions can be achieved without a bigger budget or more resources, simply by being creative.
Which will get you up and running 🏃♀️🏃♂️
How it Works
Clearly some things need money (or other conditions and resources). But, sometimes, we get trapped in negative thinking when we don't have the resources we think we need or deserve. This tip works using a concept called creative constraint. This means that you intentionally limit the possibilities for action, to see what bright ideas you (or your team) can come up with.
By flipping a negative (lack of resources) into a positive (a chance to experiment) you'll feel better. And you'll almost certainly come up with some brilliant ideas 💡
If You Are Coaching Someone
This is a simple tip to use if you are coaching someone, or even if you are working with a team. You can drop the questions in cold, but it is usually better to warm people up. Handy phrases are: Shall we try a thought experiment? What if we flip this on its head for a minute? You might find that some people don't warm to it immediately. If that's the case, smile through it and try to make it feel like fun.
And if that doesn't work, show them this clip from the movie Apollo 13.
If NASA engineers could invent a way to rescue astronauts from space with a pile of junk and some duct tape, what could you achieve with a fraction of those constraints?
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