If you’ve ever emerged from a team building day constructing rafts or bridges and wondered what difference it really made, you’re not alone. So often, activities that claim to be team building do nothing of the sort.
Are you frustrated over change progress? Do you find yourself getting angry that the status quo seems to persist, despite your best efforts to drive change? If so, it could be a signal that you’re at step 8 of the change journey.
Step 8 is about going deep. It’s the only stage that can be skipped, but if you do, then you may well come back to it on your next change journey. You can only delay it so many times, before you realise that only by going deep can we achieve advanced development.
In this article, the eighth in our change series, we are at the ‘Deep Work’ step in the Complete Step Change Wheel.
The Complete Step Change Wheel has four phases each with three steps – giving us 12 steps in the leaders’ journey. The four phases correspond to the process of human development – waking up, owning up, growing up and showing up or Discover, Decide, Develop, Deliver. Each stage builds on the last, helping you overcome obstacles to help you deliver at a new level. By understanding where you are on the wheel and what steps you need to take you can more effectively move your way through the developmental framework at greater pace.
Where are you starting from?
This step is not only about change that we might be trying to drive, as senior leaders, it’s also about our own developmental change. If you’re being repeatedly ignored for the next career move, or you keep on getting similar feedback from colleagues. It could be that you need to embrace the deeper work that will enable you to use feedback in the right way – not just get defensive about it.
Embracing this deeper work and peeling back the layers of ‘faulty code’ that might have developed as far back as childhood takes a good coach. Leaders who’ve gone around the wheel before may recognise they’re hitting a developmental ceiling, not due to a lack of effort, but a lack of depth from not leaning into the deep work
You might be able to do some of this deep work exploration yourself, but the right coach can guide you to a positive outcome. As an adult, we might believe we are rational, logical human beings, when we’re really walking, talking reactions to long forgotten lessons and events. The right coach can help you identify those limiting behaviours that could be impairing your ability to maintain relationships and effectively lead teams, divisions or even the whole business.
From the darkness into the light
We often talk about step 8 being like peering into and the entering a dark cave. It can feel intense. You may feel overwhelmed or anxious, but the main emotional tools we need to ensure the deep work is a success are openness, non-attachment, courage, determination and trust.We must be open to those experiences in the cave so we can understand them quickly and keep moving. We have the skills that we need – developed in the seven steps before this one – so we can use them to support our exploration.
A deeper understanding
In this innermost cave, we not only reboot ourselves, but we also reboot our purpose. There’s a great deal of discussion about organisational purpose, but many leaders increasingly realise that they need to understand their own personal purpose. Both organisational purpose and a leader’s personal purpose need to be aligned. The deep work at step 8 of the change journey often unlocks meaning and purpose for a leader.
The end result
The result of this deeper work is change that is permanent and embedded. A deeper understanding of ourselves and our purpose in life (and work) will be revealed. Transformation is personal and profound.
In our next article … step 9. You’ve moved on from managing your anger to not even getting angry in the first place. You’ve changed. But more on that next time.