Enough said...

In his excellent book, The Psychology of Money, Morgan Hounsel recounts the story of two famous 20th century authors, Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller, at a party thrown by a hedge fund partner on an island in upstate New York. As they are looking around at this lavish party, Vonnegut tells Heller that their host has made more money in one day than Heller's global bestselling novel, Catch-22 had made in its whole history. "Heller responded, 'Yes, but I have something he will never have...enough."

Satis. Basta. ɛyɛ. Suffit.  Nog. 十分, kutosha...Enough*. It's a resonant word isn't it? I've certainly found it to be powerful when it comes to helping my clients get unstuck, get more clarity and get going towards their desired Outcomes. 

"Enough" often gets voiced in the context of dissatisfaction in two big ways. "Enough!" can indicate frustration as in "I've had enough!"-  a phrase you've no doubt heard and said both out loud and silently at work. A number of clients have approached me voicing something of this, frustrated in a role or a working relationship or in the same old patterns and seemingly intractable situations, lacking big picture clarity about the Outcome they seek, feeling like they're banging their head against a brick wall. 

"Enough..." can also indicate hesitation - "I/ we don't have enough...". Once we've clarified their desired Outcome, clients often confront me with what I called in a previous issue of "To be Clear...." their lack list. They tell me all the ways they aren't enough or don't have enough. They tell me that they don't yet feel ready to move forward onto their Next Step because they don't have enough time, enough money, enough certainty, enough confidence, enough good people, enough information, enough energy, enough experience, enough recognition, enough emotional runway. Sometimes this is something they've been told and - a surprising amount of time - it's a narrative they have told themselves.

If you are not careful, both types of "enough" can rob you of agency and keep you stuck. But, used as a source of data, both kinds of enough can also be a spur to action. 

Where you/ your team have had enough, rather than going round and round a demoralising loop of complaint, think about what needs to be different. Perhaps you need to have a challenging conversation. Perhaps you and your team need to draw some new boundaries or set some new expectations. If you're more frequently than not in a space of "I've had enough of this" you might ask "What needs to happen so that we can say, 'I have enough' rather than 'I've had enough'?" and "What can I/ we do as a first step towards that?" 

Where you feel that you don't have enough, take some time to analyse your lack list. The Now layer of ONION^® can be helpful here. Start by asking,  "What do I/ we have already?"  in terms of resources, think about different categories of resources (time, money, information, support, skills etc.) then, once you have listed those, ask and work out, as per this previous issue of "To Be Clear...", "What currently untapped resources do I/ we have available?" and then once you've got a range of answers there, ask, "What do I/ we still need and where might I/ we find it?" 

As I take clients through the process they often discover that they do have enough after all, perhaps not enough to do everything perfectly but enough to make a decent start and to gather additional resources along the way.  

One of the reasons that clarifying your Outcome is foundational to sustainable, satisfying success is that it helps you to establish what constitutes enough. Whether the thing you feel you lack is more qualitative (e.g. information, recognition, confidence) or quantitative (time, money) it's helpful to ask "What would enough look like?" as well as "How would I/ we know we have it?". In the pursuit of enough, when it comes to your desired Outcome, it's vital to establish some clear metrics and then hold yourself and others to them. 

In a world where you are constantly given the message that "enough" is just out of reach, what would it look like to turn the dial up or down so that you're clear when you have enough? Where might you be using, "enough" as distraction, displacement or delusion that keeps you stuck and stops you seeing the real issue and doing what can be done. In both cases, how can you turn "enough" into a spur to more clarity and action and a defence against dissatisfaction?

Without that kind of clarity about what you want and why, you will always be chasing the myth of enough and, like Kurt Vonnegut and Jospeh Heller's hedge fund host, you will never have it. 

Satis. Basta. ɛyɛ. Suffit.  Nog. 十分, kutosha...Enough. It may be worth taking a few moments now to think about where that word resonates most in your life and business right now and then let that guide you and those with whom you work to more clarity at work. 

As always, let me know how it goes, and if you'd like to explore the kind of help I've provided to many people  in this area for yourself, get in touch. 

Action!

Every client I work with is seeking to make a significant and succesful change to their work, business or wider situation. They come to me because of my clear and proven focus on helping teams, individuals and organisations not only get clearer on their desired Outcome but also get going so that they get there.

Part of that success is in helping clients understand and harness the right relationship between clarity and action. One of the reasons ONION^® starts with clarity of Outcome and ends with the action of Next Steps is that in my experience those are the two key places in which people get stuck. 

For some, a lack of effective action comes from spending too much time in their heads, planning, strategising, thinking about what could go right and worrying about what could go wrong**. Others have got caught in a fruitless cycle of jumping thoughtlessly from one solution to the next without much clarity around what they are trying to achieve. Both end up frustrated  because they have a wrong understanding of the balance of clarity and action. 

The key to resolving both sorts of stuck is grasping that clarity and action are not binary but rather bedfellows - understood correctly correctly they drive each other. Clarity drives action which drives more clarity and more action, moving the wheel forward to get you to your desired Outcome. 

To use ONION^® language, as you get more clarity on your future desired Outcome and your situation Now, you can start to generate Ideas for how to get there and feasible Options and Next Steps to actively try. Those Next Steps create the positive momentum of both action and learning moving you into even clearer Next steps and even more effective action. The whole purpose of ONION^® is to help people jump into this virtuous cycle more quickly, to give them the informed confidence, and highly effective sense of agency and momentum towards success which good coaching provides. 

Herminia Ibarra, a Professor at London Business School and author of Working Identity, a book on career change which I recommend highly, talks about the enormous value of small experiments (boundaried low risk exploration) when you're unclear as to what to do next at work. She writes: "But if there is one thing I have learned from decades of studying successful career change, it’s that thinking on its own is far from sufficient. We rarely think our way into a new way of acting. Rather, we act our way into new ways of thinking — and being."

I think of one brilliant client who found himself stuck when it came to closing deals. As we worked together on this issue, we devised a series of small experiments which would help him act his way into a new way of being. 

The first small experiment was to choose a couple of potential clients with whom he had good relationships, schedule meetings in the next couple of weeks and simply change some of the language he used when he met with them. As he tried this and further little experiments, he learned new things about himself and his abilities as well as his clients. Now, many months later, he regularly closes six and seven figure deals with success, confidence and comfort much to his delight and the benefit of his and his business's bottom line. 

I can think of an organisational client aware they needed to do something different if the business was going to grow and provide their investors with a decent exit. As I worked together with the CEO and leadership team, they began a series of small experiments which led to the development of a new product which was a game changer for them.

The first small experiment was to simply explore with a small number of current partners whether they would be interested in also becoming customers for a new product. The answer was yes! The next small experiment was to start to flesh out the concept and product with those partners before testing out a very basic version. Each little experiment was a step forward which provided more data which informed the Next Step until the product was built and launched.

On a personal front, a big part of deciding whether to found my coaching business involved two small but powerful experiments which allowed me to test the hypothesis that the business would be a good fit for me as well as beneficial for clients.

So, if you or your colleagues are currently stuck on a tricky challenge or issue in your work or business, rather than getting caught up in your head or endless discussions or impulsively plunging into the solution of least resistance, perhaps ask, "What action can I/ we take in order to get more clarity?" And then once you've taken that action ask, "What have I/ we learned which helps us take the Next Step more effectively?" In other words, get some clarity on what you want and then do something which will give you more clarity to take the Next Step and then repeat the cycle with the new information you have. (The ONION^®workbook might help here.) 

As I've explored in a previous edition of "To Be Clear..." that Next Step need not be huge - perhaps getting some help, booking a meeting, starting to build even a skeleton version of what you want, starting a group, enlisting some support, building a landing page, writing a proposal or a chapter or a plan, changing your environment, talking or listening to people beyond your usual circles. 

Someone once said, “The first step is to take one”. That's why the icon for Next Steps in ONION^® looks like this...

...foot poised, toes just touching the ground - agency, action -  the momentum of forward movement which generates more forward movement towards an improved situation. Seeing clients move forward like this is why I do what I do. How about you? What small experiment can you undertake to move you forward today? Do get in touch and let me know.

As ever,

Ranti

* -  "Enough" in Latin, Spanish, Twi, French, Swedish, Japanese, Swahili and English (!) respectively. 

** - Sometimes the other way around...

Image of feet on steps: Victor Hernandez on Unsplash