- Blocking time on your calendar to plan and be more strategic
- Being bold in meetings
- Spending more time developing your team
What gets in the way of you making the change you said you wanted to make? Here is a 4-Step Process for helping you get unstuck and achieving permanent change.
Step 1: State the Goal you are struggling with. (I’ve provided an example of a real leader I worked with.)
| What’s My Goal? |
| Example: Developing my team. |
Step 2: Ask yourself, “What behaviors do I exhibit that work against my goal?” Now most leaders are aware of what behaviors are obstructing them, but have a hard time acknowledging them. This is an important step, so go ahead and state them.
| What’s My Goal? | What Behaviors Do I Exhibit That Are Working Against My goal? |
| Developing my team. | I hold onto projects, particularly the ones that I think matter most to my boss. |
These first two steps are pretty easy to address, but they don’t answer the question of what is stalling out your efforts. You need to go further to understand why you act in a way that is counter to your goal. When you find that your behaviors are misaligned with your intentions, there is likely a hidden competing commitment. It’s hidden because you are likely not aware of it yet. It’s competing because it’s working against your intentions.
PAUSE! – At this point you may be thinking in this example that all this leader needs to do is the opposite of what she was doing and that is to hand off some projects to her team. This approach may work for some, but for many leaders even if they pass the next two projects off, their behavior inevitably reverts back to acting the way they did before, particularly when they are under stress. No permanent change has occurred.
It takes a conscious (i.e., aware) and courageous leader to address steps 3 and 4.
Step 3: This next move entails looking at your hidden competing commitments by asking, “What am I afraid of will happen if I do the opposite of what I am doing?” Conscious leaders recognize they have fears and concerns and are willing to look at them.
| What’s My Goal? | What Behaviors Do I Exhibit That Work Against My Goal? | What Am I Afraid Of? |
| Developing my team. | I hold onto projects, particularly the ones that I think matter most to my boss. | I fear I may not be contributing as much. I worry I may not be seen as valuable to my boss. |
Conscious leaders will also go a little deeper and ask themselves, “What will be compromised, i.e., my hidden competing commitment, if I do the opposite of what I am currently doing?
| What’s My Goal? | What Behaviors Do I Exhibit That Work Against My Goal? | What Am I Afraid Of? |
| Developing my team. | I hold onto projects, particularly the ones that I think matter most to my boss. | I fear I may not be seen contributing as much. I worry I may not be seen as valuable to my boss. What Will Be Compromised if I do the Opposite? I may lose the status that I have established with my boss. |
Once your fears and competing commitments are identified, there is one final step to making permanent change.
Step 4: Challenge your Big Assumption. Figure out what belief or attitude is at the heart of your competing commitment by developing “if_______, then _______ statements. List these assumptions in the last column.
| What’s My Goal? | What Behaviors Do I Exhibit That Work Against My Goal? | What Am I Afraid Of? | What Is My Big Assumption? |
| Developing my team’s capabilities | I hold onto projects, particularly the ones that I think matter most to my boss. | I fear I may not be seen contributing as much. I worry I may not be seen as valuable to my boss. What Is My Hidden Competing Commitment? I may lose the status that I have established with my boss. | If I hand off projects to my team, then my boss may think I’m not adding as much value and I could be overlooked for a promotion. |
That big assumption gets to the heart of why this leader was not making the change she said she wanted to make. Failure to recognize our intentions has nothing to do with personal weakness. Studying our perceived obstacles and shifting our perspective slightly will help you find your way to meaningful change.
In this example, the leader experimented with her big assumption in a small, controlled way. She handed off part of a project to one of her team members and let that person present to her boss. After the presentation, her boss told her how glad he was to see her delegating, because he had been thinking of giving her a special assignment but didn’t know if she had the bandwidth to take it on. The leader realized that she wasn’t seen as less valuable. By taking a small step, you can test your assumption and move closer to your goal of making lasting change.
This approach to achieving transformational change is based on the work of Harvard Graduate School of Education professors Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey.
Please feel free to reach out to me if you’d like to connect about how to apply these ideas, help members on your team, or discuss other challenges you are facing today.
(This post by Marcel Henderson first appeared on LinkedIn)