For some of us the priorities are already clear. The priorities are alive in performance evaluations, and they are written into our planners or are posted on our office walls. All we have to do is keep the dialogue open and use MVA as a criterion for planning our time.
However, for other priorities, just coming to agreement about what’s important can be quite difficult.
Consider two managers—Sarah and Rob.
Sarah spent eight years leading a team in the Midwest for a company that she really loved. Recently she’d begun reporting to a new boss on the East Coast—Rob. Early on it became clear that Sarah and Rob were not clicking. Trust was low, and they struggled to communicate. Sarah felt that Rob didn’t understand her and didn’t appreciate what she had accomplished with her team. Rob felt that Sarah was quick to judge and not open to a new approach.
There they were—unhappy and stuck.
Sarah could have reacted in one of the dysfunctional ways many managers do: by blowing up in frustration and anger, snipping at Rob behind his back until a bitter confrontation was provoked, or quitting precipitously to take a less-than-ideal job. Instead, she took a thoughtful approach, which started by taking a step back to consider her own role in the impasse. Reflecting on the situation, Sarah came to realize that, while Rob wasn’t a perfect manager (who is?), she probably had some work of her own to do. She’d worked for a long time without a mentor, a champion, or even a trusted confidante, and she needed someone she could talk to about her job and its challenges, especially during this difficult time.
Sarah decided to hire a personal career coach named Keith Rosen. Keith is a Master Certified Coach and the founder of ProfitBuilders.com, a very successful executive coaching firm based in New York. Keith helped Sarah work on her communication skills, an area in which Sarah realized she could use improvement.
However, as she and Keith walked through a variety of real-life scenarios together, it soon became clear that Sarah also needed help with listening skills. She’d been unable to comprehend Rob’s explicit needs, and she certainly wasn’t accurately interpreting his implicit needs (which as we’ve noted are always harder to plumb). Keith and Sarah pondered and probed the situation together and came up with a plan.
