| Turning thought into action |
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This is the fifth in the International Coaching Week series of articles on coaching. The last one is here and links to the earlier ones. From personal experience, and in coaching others, one of the biggest challenges is turning thought into action. Thinking things through (aloud or otherwise) is only a first step and takes you no further unless that thinking becomes action. Logically commitment to action or knowing the first step to take should help - but that isn't necessarily the case. Even processes like visualisation or the NLP technique of future pacing don't help. Action is often a leap of faith - you don't know what will happen until you take that first step. The same is true in an organisational context. There are some startling statistics about the number of change initiatives that fail - most of them! The comfortable rut you are in seems much less scary than the alternative, even if you find the current situation frustrating. To quote Tolstoy "everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist, says that "uncertainty is a good gift in bad wrapping paper". In this interview she talks about how we know what we want to achieve, but put up hurdles for ourselves and how we learn by "stumbling around". How "getting up every day when things are not right and trying again" is the key to achieving our goals. Having support to keep you on track is critical. This excellent article identifies some practical steps for individuals, teams and organisations to take to make things happen. And if you scroll through the comments you will find RUMBA, an alternative to SMART, as a means of delivering the action plans you set yourself. How do you turn thought into action?
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