\u201cAssess, don\u2019t assume,\u201d I often say. Yet what did I do when my coaching client, Jay, said he needs to learn how to consider ideas that he doesn\u2019t like?<\/p>\n
I initially bought into his assumption that he doesn\u2019t know how\u2026before remembering to assess, not assume.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cOn a 1-10 scale, with 1 being low and 10 high,\u201d I asked, \u201cwhere would you peg your current ability to consider ideas that you don\u2019t like?\u201d<\/p>\n
Jay gave himself a 5.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn those situations at a level 5, what is going on in your head?\u201d<\/p>\n
Jay shared his thinking. \u201cThis idea may have potential,\u201d he said, \u201cbut if I do it this way, will I get what I want?\u201d<\/p>\n
Notice the number of I<\/i>\u2019s in Jay\u2019s question.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, remember a time when you changed your mind about an idea you didn\u2019t like.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jay described an interdepartmental scramble for diminishing dollars, when funding another leader\u2019s initiative would mean nixing his own. \u201cIs fighting for these resources the right thing for the organization?\u201d he remembered asking himself. \u201cOn further consideration, I realized that fairness meant reallocating resources for the greater good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not a single I<\/i> in his question.\u00a0 Jay scored himself \u201cat least an 8.\u201d<\/p>\n
Benchmarking examples of his own behavior narrowed Jay\u2019s developmental gap. It also taught him a lot about himself.\u00a0 When I asked what coaching assignment he would commit to completing before our next session, Jay said this: \u201cI\u2019ll journal about some of the successes from my past so I can model my best behaviors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now that\u2019s an idea worth liking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cAssess, don\u2019t assume,\u201d I often say. Yet what did I do when my coaching client, Jay, said he needs to learn how to consider ideas that he doesn\u2019t like? I initially bought into his assumption that he doesn\u2019t know how\u2026before remembering to assess, not assume. \u201cOn a 1-10 scale, with 1 being low and 10 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4tZVm-9b","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolgoldsmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolgoldsmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolgoldsmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolgoldsmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolgoldsmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=569"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/carolgoldsmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":571,"href":"https:\/\/carolgoldsmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions\/571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolgoldsmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolgoldsmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolgoldsmith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}