Steve Marriott is a world-class coach. If you’d like to benefit from his unique brand of coaching – see his NEW call to action on the Kaizen home page:
http://www.kaizen-training.com
Are you ever asked for advice, mentoring or coaching?
From time to time we are all called upon to provide help and guidance to others. We are presented with friends and colleagues who for whatever reason are not performing as they should, have made (or are making) mistakes or who are in a place of confusion/emotional turmoil. There may even be times when you’d quite like to offer some sage advice and wisdom to someone without them asking you!
Our natural inclination is to ‘fix’ them by offering our expertise, highlighting where they are going ‘wrong’ and showing them better ways of doing things. We even do it to ourselves…think of a time when things didn’t go the way you wanted, needed or planned. My guess is that you blamed yourself (maybe you still blame yourself?) or blamed something else (maybe you still blame something else?); Either way, something was wrong and needed to be ‘put right’.
Much of this impulsive behaviour to ‘fix’ and be ‘fixed’ is what we’ve learned from our parents, education and the media. From a very early age we’re bombarded with ‘black & white’ depictions of our world; the good and the bad, right and wrong, pass and fail. That’s all very well if you’re an engineer, but in my experience, human beings don’t obey the same ‘laws’ as machinery and computers. The human experience is infinitely more complex than the simple on or off of a switch.
“To fix the world, you must first see it as broken…I’m not so sure I’d go there.” The Universe, Tut.com
Assigning blame and searching for a fix renders you or your client helpless. It creates a ‘reason‘ for things being exactly the way they are rather than a desire to change. Sure, there are benefits in understanding how we got to where we are but that’s no guarantee on where you go from here – certainly not in human terms. A much more productive, creative and resourceful starting point is one of acceptance of things as they are, no right or wrong, no good or bad, no pass or fail.
Few of us will ever meet and work with a human being who is truly ‘broken’. This shift in thinking and approach has helped me work with people who have been written-off at work (and at home), those labelled as dreamers and people dealing with terrible life situations. It has given them the gift of choice and enabled them to make life-changing transformations. I offer it to anyone who truly wants to help people (and themselves) find happiness, fulfilment and passion in their lives.
Nothing’s broken. It may not be how you wanted it, but broken it certainly isn’t.
Call to action
Who have you been trying to ‘fix’?
Knowing that they’re not broken, what could you do now to help them succeed?
