One foot on the gas, one on the break

“I am bored at work. I feel like I could do my job with my left hand, almost switching off my brain, and I would like to experiment with something new, maybe volunteering for a side project, maybe applying for a position in a different area”

This was the starting point for a coachee last week, let’s call her Sarah.
A Finance Manager considered a top performer, and who yet feels stuck in a position where she is not learning and growing anymore. No wonder she shares feeling apathetic.

Later on during our session, she shared her deep worry about volunteering for those side projects or applying for those positions: “What about if I am not able/capable?” “I don’t have enough experience in that area” “I am not sure this new idea I want to implement in the project will actually work, and I cannot fail in front of my team”...

“I am new in this Organisation, and thanks to my outside perspective I can see a few key processes that don’t work and should be improved. I tried to share a few ideas with colleagues but they didn’t seem very receptive, so I let it go”.

This senior project manager (let’s call him Mike), later described how he still feels the odd-one-out in a very cohesive team of people who have been working together for many years.

He is trying all he can to fit in and is afraid that the new perspective and approaches he’d like to propose will create tensions in the team, and that his teammates will think he is too arrogant.
After all, he says “they might know better, since they’ve been there longer”.

“I have been called in to lead and deeply re-organise the whole business line. I have done a similar job in another Organisation and it has worked very well. But here, I find a lot of resistance and the more I push for changes, the less people seem to actually move, and it is becoming very frustrating”.

This BL Head (let’s call him Robert) shared how deeply the Company vision in terms of sustainability and community involvement resonated with him and how committed he felt to leading the Business Line and making things happen, and at the same how frustrated it was for him to see people “just not listening, and stubbornly anchored to old-fashioned, ineffective ways of thinking and working”.

Do you see how these three people are driving with one foot on the gas and one on the break?

Perfectionism blocking Sarah from trying something new, going out of her comfort zone and regaining motivation, Pleasing tendencies getting into Mike’s way when trying to improve and innovate, and Autocratic/Arrogant behaviours preventing Robert from leading his department towards the same vision he is so committed to.

This driving modality has a double negative impact:

1. It depletes people’s energy without actually moving anywhere: the more I think about how to make my new move perfect, the less likely I am to actually take the first step, the more I try to be liked by everyone on the team, the less I will have the courage to address the elephant I see in the room, the more I believe I know all the right answers, the less I am likely to engage in a real conversation with other people and hear the reasons behind their resistance
2. It deprives the system around them of their greatest gifts: Mike’s great improvement ideas will remain in his own head, and the Organisation will keep losing time and money in inefficient processes, Robert’s efforts to drive change will most likely remain unheard, and the great vision he wants to contribute to will become more difficult to reach, Sarah’s energy will continue to decrease, and her Department won’t benefit from one of its greatest minds.

My invitation to Mike, Sarah and Robert has been to ask themselves:

• What are the risks and costs of continuing to drive in this modality?
• What could be a good first experiment they can put in place, where they give themselves permission to take their foot 10% off the break?
  

Is answering to these questions scary? I bet YES!

Is it needed? I would suggest YES!

As one of my favourite quotes says “There is no safe way to be great, and there is no great way to be safe” (Bob Anderson)