The Way Successful Executives ‘Look’

02/02

Are we willing to ‘look’ at our health, the state of our home, our business, anything for that matter? Two important points here. Willingness is the gate keeper without which nothing happens. To LOOK is the verb. One would not be willing to look, really look, at every house on a street, but might be very willing to look at the one that is for sale. If we are talking your career/job or business, are you willing to look?

If I decide to Look am I then willing to SEE? It can be very convenient not to actually see what is. For instance, if I am really enamoured with someone I may not see what my friends see and skim past some very important aspects of this person’s persona. Again, when I look at my career or business, am I willing to See what is really there? Lack of willingness to See while appearing to Look, hmmmm, what am I doing?

When I SEE all that is there, or at least more than I usually take note of, am I willing to Tell The Truth about what I see? This can be a big ouch. What if I see that the car I just bought is pretty enough but a mechanical basket case? What if I spend more time on Facebook than on ‘doing’ my business? Let’s start with telling the Truth. Am I willing to Tell The Truth about what I now see? Let it sink in, gently 🙂

Telling the Truth is often a relief, kind of like naming the elephant in the room. What now? Now is the time to choose right action, act with integrity, do the right thing, move in a better way. Conquer from the place of now acknowledging the Truth. What’s True? What will I now Do because of what is True? After all, if we stop short of Action, what is the point of it all? Act with integrity. It will feel really good, though it may feel hard at the start

Action is the end point. Willingness is the start point. If one is not willing to Look and then See and Tell the Truth any actions are likely to be ineffective, won’t accomplish much. An accumulation of such actions will likely appear as random, directionless and weak. So… what am I Willing to do better? Where am I Willing to soar higher? When will I be Willing to breathe easier? Where shall I use this sequence?

The string of Look, See, Tell the Truth, Act with Integrity came to me from a course at the Academy for Coaching Excellence offered by Dr Maria Nemeth. This form of seeing the world in a more helpful way I have encountered in many forms before (eg Notice, Name, Choose) but I really have been taken by the simplicity and elegance of the way Maria has stated it.