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ORGANIZATIONAL: Take charge of your job.
Employees turn personal change and organizational churn into opportunity when they not only advance in the system, but also challenge and develop themselves right in their current position. These are self-leaders and they step forward to initiate and actively engage in their job growth with organizational support. Development by chance is too passive. Rethinking Work guides employees as they take charge, learning and refocusing, to become more enthusiastic and productive self-leaders.
THE RETHINKING WORK® PROCESS
Four 75-minute, one-on-one sessions, thoughtfully spaced apart to meet individual needs and organizational demands. Most organizational clients rethink work—reflect, explore, and engage—during a two to five month period in order to listen to their inner ponderings, draw on their core strengths, better understand organizational and customer needs, sift through options, focus, and achieve new goals. Rethinking Work includes:
Pre-Session Questions: Seven questions that shape the writing of your mini-autobiography—a reflection to increase your awareness, organize your thoughts, and clarify your Rethinking Work purpose.
Homework: Highly relevant between-session assignments to augment and deepen learning and accelerate your development process.
Check-in: Between-session consultation to review homework and discuss challenges and progress.
Holistic Perspective: Support to better understand the organizational system, while attending to your evolving self, as a means toward sound and sustainable decisions.
Navigation: Enough structure—exercises, feedback, and suggestions—to gain perspective, yield focus, and encourage action, combined with enough flexibility—storytelling, brainstorming, and experimenting—to inspire creativity and attract opportunity.
RETHINKING WORK COACHING:
- REFLECT – Pre-session questions and assessment review, primary-challenge discussion, plus tailored assignment
- EXPLORE – Deepen understanding of strengths and concerns, and guided core value discovery, plus tailored assignment
- ENGAGE – Apply reflection and exploration to the workplace and customer, plus tailored assignment
- Follow-Through – Further guidance to insure fulfillment and productivity, plus feedback on Rethinking Work value
Outcome: Self-leadership competence, including compelling clarity and focus to align strengths with organizational goals to contribute. In addition, the motivation to use the Rethinking Work cycle—reflect, explore, and engage—on an ongoing basis to better manage one’s job and others.
READINESS CHECKLIST
Use this Readiness Guide to assess, measure, and affirm your readiness. If you check three or more of the items, you are ready to start the Rethinking Work process.
Do you want to . . .
[ ] make more worthwhile contributions?
[ ] take charge of your attitude?
[ ] reawaken your spirit?
[ ] overcome your work fears?
[ ] stay in your current job and grow there?
[ ] take control of your work-life?
[ ] better align with customers’ needs?
[ ] maintain a clear sense of self while you work with others?
[ ] establish a new work attitude?
[ ] set a leadership example?
[ ] approach work with grace?
[ ] inspire others?
PRE-SESSION QUESTIONS
Review the seven pre-session questions. Your answers to them will clarify and organize your thoughts.
- Would you write about your work background, ups and downs, and points of interest? Include some history about how you came to your current work. Who has most influenced your work and career choices? Write a few pages!
- What has worked—actions, beliefs and skills—for you in the present? In the past?
- What is most challenging—pressing—to you now? To what degree do you feel that you’re at the end of a challenge? Would you like to learn and master something new? Explain.
- What do you want more of in your work/life? Less of? What do you need to "let go" of in order to move on to your goals?
- What do you enjoy—engages you—anything, inside or outside of work?
- Would you write down some words (hopeful, fearful, impatient) and phrases (can't seem to relax, stuck in routine, need focus) that describe you now and in the recent past?
- What would you like to accomplish by rethinking your work? If you progressed toward a more fulfilling job, or restructured your current position, what would that mean to your life? How would your organization benefit?
ORGANIZATIONAL CLIENT EXAMPLES
Healthcare Organization – Jordan, director of human resources: “One of the strengths I thought I brought to my position was fresh perspective, an outsider’s view. I’m not an outsider anymore. I want to still deliver a fresh perspective, but am fearful I am getting desensitized, and, heaven forbid, actually defensive at times! The only way I can think of describing what I desire in work is to ‘crank it up a notch’ in my current position. I want to be engaged and effective, not allowing as many situations to affect my morale and bring me down. If I’m going to remain in this role, I have to find a balance between listening to others’ views and making decisions that not everyone will like, and be okay with that.”
Financial Firm – Geoffrey, corporate attorney: “I’m feeling pushed by my own career ponderings and yearnings. I want less stress, caused by wondering how I might apply more of my passion and intellect at work. Sometimes I blame my boss for not recognizing my growth. Doesn’t she see how I’m able to strategize and handle multiple projects? My goal is to take responsibility for growing with and adding value to this company as I stay true to myself. My challenge is to dig through my experience, uncover the talents that I really want to use, put my desires into terms that build my confidence and communicate to my boss how I could be of greater service to the department and company.”
Publishing Firm – Melissa, director of new business development: “A friend of mine used to say that when she got stuck trying to decide what to do, she went to sleep. When she woke up she knew what to do. This tactic, so far, hasn’t worked for me. I want to feel a sense of pride in my work. I want to know something that is of use to someone, and not feel like my work is ‘selling’ something I don’t understand or care about. A few of my colleagues are leaving this firm to start a software company and they have asked me to join them as a partner. I have a few months to decide. Most of my life I’ve focused on how to keep my job. Now, I’d like you to help me to make a purposeful decision. I want to better understand my strengths and how to apply them in my current job, then I can make a wiser decision.”
TRANSFORM THE JOB YOU HAVE RIGHT NOW
Carmella, the president of a jewelry manufacturing company, complained, “The executive team that reports to me is fractured. We’re name calling and avoiding face-to-face meetings. Can you help us get back together so that we can enjoy our work again?” After interviewing six executives by telephone, I met the scowling group in person and began by saying, “The goal will not be victory (win-lose) but agreement (win-win). First, we’ll all need to learn to respect one another. Doing so involves carefully considering our thoughts, words, and deeds. Only by reflecting on our personal responsibilities––in other words, by facing ourselves––can we strengthen the communication and relationships necessary to unite and grow this company.”
My strategy was to create a safe context in which the executives could talk openly about their feelings and reflect on how their working relationships might change for the better. One outcome was that the team established a new rule: Think before you speak––in other words, reflect on your part in the problem––and then share your part of the solution.
RETHINKING WORK TO BENEFIT YOU AND YOUR ORGANIZATION
Contact Cliff Hakim: cliff@rethinkingwork.com or 617.661.1250
We’ll discuss your specific situation. Determine if it’s time for you to start Rethinking Work, and if so, how your company can support your next steps. Fees are paid by the organization.
Cliff will challenge you, ask you to think, and expect you to dedicate
significant time and energy to your exploration. However, he sticks
with you, helping you focus on your strengths, listen to your inner desires,
and draw on your core values.
Gordon MacFarland
Chief Operating Officer
Ceres
Investors & Environmentalists
for Sustainable Prosperity