As we come towards the close of the year, we thought it would be interesting to share our key learnings from our work through 2024.
We have had an amazing year, working on a range of projects – from global transformation projects, through to leadership development programmes and (of course!) executive coaching. We’ve had the pleasure and privilege of working with a wide range of outstanding clients and partners.
Here are some of the recurring themes of our practice, throughout 2024 (client or and project anonymised to maintain confidentiality)
The best learning is by doing
Knowledge is freely available; we can all access the internet and AI to find out the answers to our questions. This can lead to a false confidence where people know the answer but do not necessarily understand, or can contextually apply, the knowledge to achieve their desired outcomes. When we provide observations and feedback in workshops or coaching, we frequently hear people saying “I know that – but I just didn’t do it.”
This illustrates the need to not only seek out knowledge but to fully consider and reflect on what it means to you; how you can incorporate it into your practice and then to purposefully assimilate the knowledge into your behavioural habits. The only way of effectively doing this is by actively and consciously doing something to make your learning an active and experiential process.
Our coaching practice has, as always, focused on experiential and reflective learning with each session ending in action and commitment, and the subsequent session beginning with reflections and learning. In this way we seek to ensure that learning by doing becomes a habit.
Curiosity is to be prized and encouraged
So many times during the year have we worked with people who had a starting position of “I know the answer” and who then changed their position as their perspective changed through discussion, analysis and reflection. Revans identified that we “only know the answers to the questions we have asked” and thus encouraged us to ask more questions, to seek more understanding, to view situations from others’ perspectives, and, in doing so, develop our understanding.
Being curious about how others see the world, or understand situations, is a fantastic attribute that helps us to work with others more effectively and to empathically understand that their view or reality will be different to ours. Unless we seek to understand the difference, collaboration and co-creativity are much more difficult.
Much of our focus with leaders this year has been encouraging them, through questions and debate, to explore alternative perspectives, listen fully to others, and to lift their understanding from situational to strategic. In this way, they are able to make connected and empathic decisions, with full regard to the context and the consequences.
Change requires focus and determination
Whether the change is at an organisational level or concerned with our personal leadership style, we need to focus on what we want to achieve, and be clear in our ambition. Without this focus we tend to make ‘away from’ decisions, where our goal is to escape the situation we are in.
We have worked with several people this year who have taken an ‘away from’ decision and then realised that, whilst the new destination looked appealing, this was because it was different from their start point – not because it ticked all their boxes. They quickly realised that a ‘different place’ was not necessarily the right place for them.
Our support was then targeted on helping them to focus; to define, precisely, what they wanted and then to determine the best route to achieving their intended future. This journey of change requires a clear determination to succeed, a constant ‘eyes on the prize’ mindset and a strong belief that this is the right path to follow.”
Focus on outcomes not activities
This has been a recurring theme through the year, as we work with so many leaders who have learnt through their career that the measure of their value is how busy they are. The more activities they are involved in, the more congested their diary, the better they are as a leader. Unfortunately, this common misconception leads us to focus on what we need to do rather than on what we need to achieve.
When we work with leaders and leadership teams and ask them to focus on outcomes, the quality of the debate; the level of engagement; and the clarity of focus lift enormously with consequential impact on their ability to create value. One of Covey’s 7 Habits was to ‘begin with the end in mind’ and we have refined that through our practice to ‘begin with the outcome in focus.’
A clear focus on the required outcome, determined by understanding context, content and stakeholder expectations and requirements, leads to a more connected value contribution and helps us to prioritise our time and energy. A much better place than simply being busy.
There are, of course, many other learnings from the year; but these four seem to be more prevalent and more pivotal, as we have helped clients to understand and apply an enabling leadership style to engage, inspire, enhance and value their teams.
As usual, please do get in touch if you want to discuss or explore these topics in more detail.
We look forward to sharing more Insights with you through 2025 and wish you all the best for the Festive break.