Blueprint for Transformation

PRACTICE GUIDE – Embracing Uncertainty

If you produce results you don’t like, then you will choose different actions or different ways of interpreting events. But those choices and events could be the result of pre-existing habits and unexamined beliefs. To transform your results you have to change the observer that you are and expand your possibilities for action.   

After 30 plus years working as a service manager, team leader, personal coach and organisational development consultant, this simple model has worked well for anyone, in any situation, seeking transformation through self-awareness and focused conversations.

CLARITY: If you’re not getting the results you want, you need to reflect on your own thinking and action. You then gain an insight into which practices aren’t delivering the results you want. You cannot deliver results that matter to you if you’re blind to a contaminated way of assessing reality. 

Ask yourself and your team:

• What do you want to happen?
• What are you seeking to produce it?
• What is at stake if you don’t act now?
• What is stopping you?
• What have you not tried so far?

TRANSFORMATION: When you become more conscious of the way language, moods, emotions, and body posture impact on your performance, you know what to look for and change to get a better result. This awareness of your whole self, empowers you to influence others and help them to improve the results they get. You need to access this innate wisdom more than ever in a world that is becoming more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. 

In all focused conversations you should: 

• Be clear when making requests, offers and commitments.
• Be fully present and listen for intentions and concerns
• Be upfront about the criteria for mutual satisfaction and trust
• Be specific in your declarations and deadlines 
• Be open about your concerns and explore the bigger picture
• Be aware of the need to create a positive mood space 
• Be accountable and sincere when agreeing and managing commitments

SELF-LEARNING:  Learning happens in the “possibility space” between knowing and doing what really matters to you. It’s the source of your being that is not your thoughts or feelings.  It’s your integrity, trustworthiness, resilience, authenticity, clarity, compassion, ambition, commitment, accountability, etc. This website guides you, one thought, one conversation and one action at a time to notice and question who you are and why you’re here. You will build a unique set of distinctions to build competence and confidence.

Some key observations about learning are that: 

• Real knowing is embodied through action. Mastery requires regular practice.
• Actions are driven by emotions and thoughts, linked to declared intentions.
• Assessments are based on the unique observations and standards of the observer.
• New distinctions are concepts that empower our capacity for possible action.  
• Most barriers to learning are beliefs that take us away from practising.
• To generate a new future, those barriers to learning must be broken down.

COACHING: If you are looking to transform your Way of Being and “be” a more effective leader and coach, then this is how I can help you.

I will do my very best in our first conversation to understand your world and see if we connect. I can then get clarity on what’s possible for you to get the results you’re after. If at the end of the conversation you feel good and ready to go forward, and I can see some opportunities to make a difference for you, I will come back with some ideas for how we could work together. If that seems fair to you, then just get in touch so we can arrange to chat.

Four Blueprints for Transformational Coaching and Life Leadership in organisations.

Supported in this website are four frameworks that help many local and global leaders, managers and coaches achieve their full potential. It’s the depth of understanding that will secure the most positive impact and value of leadership. This is because skills are important, but they must be grounded in clarity if mind, giving you what you need in the moment to deal with the matter at hand.

Underpinning each framework are three questions designed to clarify WHAT is the most important issue you are facing right now. You then need to ask, SO WHAT is actually happening that makes it a priority and justifies your attention? To make progress you can then ask: NOW WHAT action is needed to take care of what matters?

As soon as action is taken, a new context emerges and these three questions will arise again, and again for you to adapt to changing circumstances. It’s a simple yet powerful tool for clarifying motives and priorities in a dynamic and complex situation. It’s your grounding in knowing yourself better and the impact you can have on others that will deliver transformational results for you and what you care most about.  

1. See the bigger picture and find new energy.

You live in Relationships. Every aspect of existence requires renewable energy to maintain itself. Human systems benefit from innate learning and intelligence (inside-out energy), a continuously shifting context (outside-in energy), rules for local interaction (bottom-up energy) and clarity of purpose (top-down energy).  These four perspectives energise new ways of collaborating and coordinating action. You and your “tribe” are more powerful when these energy sources are tapped to overcome barriers to meaningful communication, enrich conversations, and improve understanding. 

2. Know yourself better to enhance your awareness and impact.

You live in Conversations. The stories and mental map that you live from, help you interpret the processes that create your reality. You are in a continuous process of becoming. Hence an innate need to care for yourself and others (relating), connect at a deeper human level (presencing), take responsibility for your feelings (emotioning) and make the distinctions and commitments needed to give your life meaning and purpose (languaging)  All four impact on each other to produce a continuous flow of being. This is how you interrogate reality, make every conversation more honest, face tough challenges and take responsibility for your instincts and emotions. 

3. Observe your thoughts and manage your feelings to get the best results.

You live in Emotions. The moods that emotions create are linked to thoughts that predispose you to act in an optimistic or pessimistic state of mind. You can get stuck in a mood until you see what’s blocking your ability to think and act differently (to face facts). This insight enables you to consider your options and move on (to explore possibilities). Overcoming your fear of the unknown requires the courage to be curious and question assumptions (to embrace uncertainty)  Understanding the inevitability of change will encourage you to adapt and learn how to be the person you want to be (to seek growth). You see life and leadership differently when you realise that you are not your thoughts and feelings, you create them and can change them in an instant.  

4. Find the triggers that will transform your life experience.

You live in your Story. Your life is a story that unfolds moment-to-moment like a movie that you observe on a “screen” that is your conscious experience. It may seem beyond your control, and largely it is, but it helps to slow down the movie to find the frame that triggers how you respond to events. Changing your Way of Being changes your world and produces a new future. You focus on your intentions and passions (your inner producer) that gives purpose and clarity to the new story running in your head (your inner scriptwriter).  You change the narrative so it works for you (your inner director) and enables you to design and rehearse how you will perform (your inner actor). This maximises your effectiveness. 

Browse the site for a fuller explanation of the frameworks and practices that will have a transformational impact on your life and leadership.