To be clear...Walk small and....Know your runway

Published: Fri, 04/28/23

Dear ,

Welcome to this edition "To Be Clear..." - a refreshing sip of regular coaching clarity in your inbox where I share a couple of brief ideas which I hope that you can apply in your work life.

Work can be challenging whether you're running your own business or working for someone else and this issue offers a couple of tools to help you get some clarity on two major challenges which affect many of us at work.

Small steps

Photo by julio andres rosario ortiz on Unsplash

The work I do with clients is all about the sort of increased awareness and deeper clarity which leads to more effective action in their work or business. That's why ONION finishes as it does - once you've identified your Outcomes, got clear on your Now, surfaced some great Ideas, filtered them down to feasible Options, you're in a position to identify and then to take your Next Step.

But sometimes, even in the middle of the process, people can still feel a bit stuck - overwhelmed by Options or even overwhelmed by a seeming lack of Options.

When faced with a seemingly intractable situation at work, a Big Bad Challenge which won't go away - a project that won't move forward, a client or colleague that won't play ball, a lack of sufficient funds, a non-responsive stakeholder, an insatiably demanding investor, a role that can't be filled, an opportunity you can't grasp, a responsibility that you can't get shot of - it can make you feel like you've run into (or keep banging your head against) one of these:

Image: Waldemar on Unsplash

What to do then? Pretend the Big Bad Challenge doesn't exist? Sink into the Slough of Despond? Seethe with resentment? Complain to anyone who'll listen? The testing I've been doing of the ONION card deck has revealed that there is a better way which enables you to get real clarity and to move forward as a result! One of the cards from the Ideas layer has proved to be especially helpful to people who are feeling stuck on a challenge at work and here it is...

"What's the smallest thing you could do to make progress?" It doesn't sound like much but it turns out to be a powerful coaching question because it takes the pressure off and opens your mind to the possibility that progress is possible.

I see this all the time with my clients - with teams and organisations as well as with individuals. Seemingly intractable challenges tend to push you into an "all or nothing" mindset and, when you can't do everything, it's easy to falsely assume that there's nothing you can do.

"What's the smallest thing you could do to make progress?" Testing this question out with users of the prototype ONION card decks has demonstrated that once people work out what the smallest step is, they very quickly develop a greater sense of agency and bigger ideas.

So, here's a challenge for the coming week - maybe face up to the Big Bad Challenge at work which you've been trying to ignore (even as it oppresses and depresses you), look that challenge in the eye and ask: "What's the smallest thing I could do here to make progress?"

You can also ask this as a team facing a challenge together - "What's the smallest thing we could do to make progress here?"

Maybe the the answer to the question lies in simply facing up to it, maybe it's something else but, once you get clear on that smallest thing and start moving, everything else will start to move - it may be slow or barely perceptible at first but there will be progress and progress often creates its own momentum.

Or perhaps there's a colleague, collaborator or someone you're mentoring who can't see a way forward on a professional or business challenge. Why not try the question with them? "What's the smallest thing you could do here to make progress?" Just ask it and give them a little space and silence to consider it and and see what a difference it makes.

Good luck and, as always, let me know how it goes.

Next up an encouragement and a tool to help you to preserve your most precious resource at work...(and, no, it isn't coffee!)

Recognising your runway

Image: Jordi Moncasi on Unsplash

A couple of years ago I founded the Business Coaching Helpdesk at Portobello Business Centre (PBC) to provide pro bono access to coaching support for founders who might not otherwise have that kind of access. PBC is a great social enterprise run by a great team and it's a privilege to work with them to support such a large and diverse group of founders on their journey to building (and often bootstrapping) new businesses.

In some ways, this work couldn't be further away from the seemingly glamorous world of Silicon Valley* and the billions in venture capital funding which some of my private practice clients are looking to tap into. However, in other ways, the struggles and dilemmas which founders face are universal. Even if you're not building a business, everyone faces risk as they look to do new things or find themselves presented with fresh challenges at work.

I love working with clients seeking to do new things or to do something for the first time - in some ways, it is my specialism. However, in my experience, there's a key question which many people fail to ask when they consider taking on a new challenge at work. Not asking this question breaks more new businesses than a lack of cash** and scuppers more new roles and new initiatives than a lack of experience and resources.

Here's the question: "What's your emotional runway right now?"

Let me explain what I mean by that. Anyone who's been on a plane is reassured to know that their pilot has a good sense of how much runway they need in order to make a safe and succesful landing. In the world of startups, the amount of cash a business has left before it hits the skids is also known as "runway" and a running awareness of that number is key to survival.***

But there's an even more precious and finite resource than money when it comes to your work and business and rightly estimating levels of this resource makes all the difference to the clarity, quality and long term success of your decisions at work, especially when it comes to new things. That resource is your current store of emotional energy and resilience.

New things require a specific sort of energy both at their inception and as they develop - physical and mental energy but also emotional energy. That requirement is why it's worth considering your emotional resources any time you are presented with the opportunity to get involved in or start something new whether it's a new business, a new role, a new project, a new strategy or a new venture.

Emotional runway is a phrase I've come across recently and it encapsulates something that comes up with many of my clients, not just founders, as they consider whether to embark on something new.

However outwardly or emotionally repressed we appear, reams of neuroscience and psychological research, as well as millenia of human experience and observation, have proved time and time again what a big part emotions play in our key decisions. Indeed, they play a far bigger part than most of us would like to admit. Ironically, when we don't acknowledge this, we lose vital clarity and objectivity and make worse decisions as a result.

So, if you - or someone with whom you work - is facing a decision over whether to take on something new, perhaps ask yourself or them "What's your emotional runway right now?" You might show them or yourself this grid and ask, "How much runway before you tip over from the top left to the bottom left quadrant - from survival to overwhelm?" You might ask, "Might this new challenge or role or venture require more emotional capital than I/ we have or are likely to have in the the near future?" or "Are there things that have been building at work or in my wider life which have shortened my emotional runway?"

An honest answer to the question might mean that you defer an opportunity or that you approach it in a different way or on a different timescale or that you put in place the right support. It might even mean choosing to say "No" to something else so you can say "Yes" to this. At the very least, asking the emotional runway question will give you more data as to how to approach the new opportunity and, as featured in a previous newsletter, emotions can be pretty good sources of data if you let them.

I'd be really keen to hear your thoughts on emotional runway. I've been so encouraged by your responses to the last few newsletters. Hearing from one "To be Clear..." reader about how the Leadership Team at their organisations recently got great value from doing a Done List together was great! Thank you for sharing that!

We're about to go into the first of many Bank Holiday weekends here in the UK but, whatever the coming days hold for you, wishing you a clearer week ahead.

As ever,

Ranti

* - Not just a real place in California but the name of possibly my favourite comedy which happens to be set there.

** - For those who are founders, you might find some of the resources on my website helpful - especially this article and this one on emotional resilience

*** - I've worked with plenty of scaling businesses trying to manage their runway (some better than others) both as a coach to founders and in my previous role in corporate restructuring

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