Finding Square Holes E-Book

Anita Houghton

• Herausgeber: Crown House Publishing
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 325

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2005

Beschreibung

If you're in a fix in your career, trying to decide what to do or JUST disgruntled with your current job, this is the book for you. Starting with the premise that you can't achieve happiness in anything if you don't know what you want in life, the book uses an engaging approach to take you on a journey of self-discovery.

Leseprobe

Finding Square Holes

Discover who you really are and find the perfect career

Anita Houghton

To Richard, Claire and Victoria

Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank:

Caroline Hogarth and Pippa Houghton for braving an early draft and giving me the encouragement I needed to keep going.

All at Crown House Publishing for their support, their enthusiasm and their hard work in making it all possible.

Rhona MacDonald, who first paid me to write.

Kate Parkin for her invaluable advice.

Donna Percival, Mariette Castellino, Patricia Campos and Chris Rasey, my coaches and confidantes, for the support, the learning and the laughs.

Carol Parkes, Judy Allen and Gill Clack, my Myers-Briggs friends, who temper my prejudices, and correct my mistakes.

My special friends, Liz Griffiths, Ailsa Wight, Nia Ellis and Sharon Sole, for still being around after so many years, and for making me laugh at the least funny of times.

Alain de Botton for allowing me to model his approach to writing a book, and for teaching me the purpose of anxiety.

All the writers and trainers that have helped shaped my own personal and career development, and so allowed me to help others. There are so many, but I’d like to thank particularly: John Seymour and his associates for their wonderful NLP training; Nancy Barger, who inspired me with her teaching on Myers-Briggs; Brian Tracy for his wisdom and inspiration on The Psychology of Achievement (2002); Michael Neil for his tireless production of coaching tips (www.geniuscatalyst.com); Stephen Covey for his excellent The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1990); and Susan Jeffers for helping me to make some of my most difficult decisions with her invaluable advice in Feel the Fear and Do ItAnyway (1991).

And last, but not least, Richard, Claire and Victoria for loving me enough to put up with my singing.…

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part 1 Getting started

Chapter One Setting the scene

Chapter Two Getting in the right frame of mind

Part 2 The groundwork

Chapter Three Why do we work?

Chapter Four Why else do we work?

Chapter Five What sort of person are you?

Chapter Six What’s important to you in life?

Chapter Seven What’s important about you?

Chapter Eight What are your assets?

Chapter Nine What lies between you and your ideal career?

Part 3 Getting practical

Chapter Ten Making sense of it all

Chapter Eleven Getting motivated

Chapter Twelve The three ingredients of good career exploration

Chapter Thirteen Action!

Chapter Fourteen Ten useful beliefs for the future

Bibliography

About the Author

Copyright

Introduction

If you are a connoisseur of self-help books you’ll be familiar with the writers who started from nothing, battled with the odds, and finally came through as international stars. Photographed with tanned faces in the grounds of substantial properties, surrounded with ex-spouses mingling good-naturedly with happy, well-adjusted children, they smilingly let us into the secrets of their success.

I’d like to reassure you that I am not one of these. My qualifications for writing a book on work are two-fold, and nothing to do with having a perfect life. The first qualification is that I have had the odd problem with work myself, and have learned a great deal through dealing with those problems; the second is that I have used that learning to help a large number of people through theirs.

Work can be both your making and your undoing. A productive, successful and happy working life is a wonderful thing: inspiring, fulfilling and fun. An unhappy working life can not only ruin your working days, but has the ability to infect your whole life with misery. Investing some time and effort in getting it right will therefore not only pay dividends in terms of short-term success and happiness at work, it will provide a framework for planning your entire working life, and will have immeasurable positive effects on the rest of your life.

Many books on work and careers are centred around success, and the Western concept of success is high status and much money. This book is different in that it is centred on happiness and fulfilment at work, for two simple reasons:

Few of us want status and money at any price, andSuccess follows happiness as night follows day.

Basic principles

The mistake that many people make in choosing their careers is starting off with a long list of possible careers and wondering which ones they might be able to shoe-horn themselves into. The idea behind this book is that instead you might discover what shape you are, and then create a career around that shape.

The underlying principles are:

Knowing and understanding yourself is an essential first step towards a successful and happy career.

When you know who you are, how you excel, and what inspires, fascinates and drives you, you can review and plan your career with confidence.

Once you realise that success and happiness are within your control in one area of your life, you open up the possibility that this could be applied to other parts of your life. The results are life-changing.

If you work through this book I can guarantee that by the end of it two things will have happened: you will be in a much better position to plan and execute your future career, and you will feel a lot better than you do now. There will be times when you will wonder what some chapter or exercise has to do with your career, but if you want to get your career right, you need to do some groundwork, and that groundwork needs to be broad-based.

Figure 0.1

Part 1 of this book is aimed at setting the scene, providing some background on typical career problems and their causes, and some strategies for getting in the right frame of mind for exploring yourself and your career.

Part 2 covers the work each person needs to do in laying a strong foundation for career development. It asks what sort of person you are, why you work, what’s important to you, and what’s important about you? It takes a close look at what you have to offer in the workplace, and at what holds you back from offering it. In doing so it leads you to a greater understanding of the problems and dilemmas you are facing, or have faced in the past, and provides a framework for planning the future.

Armed with this new knowledge, Part 3 takes you through a practical career development process which will ultimately lead to an action plan.

What is your purpose in reading this book?

If you’re an independent-minded sort of person you’ll probably only have a passing interest in my purpose for you, and will be tempted to skip entirely any section in a book entitled ‘How to use this book’. You may want to work through the pages that follow methodically, or you may want to cut straight to one or two of the chapters that interest you. You may prefer to do it alone, or with a friend, or even a group of people. Whatever method you choose, I urge you to do one thing in preparation, and that is to clarify what you want from reading the book.

clarify what you want from reading the book

Take a few minutes to ask yourself: what would I like to have for myself at the end of this book? What am I hoping to achieve?

It might be to:

Make a particular decision about a job or career moveUnderstand your current problems or dilemmasGain knowledge about your strengthsGenerate a list of career optionsLearn about career development in order to help someone elseMake a plan to improve your work-life balanceIncrease your self-awarenessSomething completely different from any of these

When you have your desired outcome or outcomes, ask yourself: if I had this by the end of the book, would I be pleased? If you have any doubts, try adjusting your outcome until you’re happy with it.

Once you’re sure about what you want from the process, think about how you will assess your success. What will you have to show for it? It may be a decision made, a plan drafted, a list generated, or it may be something less tangible, a new feeling of peace, an ability to move on from a past experience, or a sense of optimism about the future. When you know what it is you will have, ask yourself what it will be like when you have it. How will you feel exactly? What will you be seeing, thinking, hearing, experiencing? How will other people in your life be responding?

Personal outcomes

What are my outcomes for this process?

1

2

3

4

How will I know when I have these things?

What will it be like when I have these things? (what will I feel, think, see, hear?)

When you have your outcomes you are ready to begin. Work has the potential to bring great happiness. The aim of this book is to help you find that happiness.

Part 1

GETTING STARTED

Chapter One

Setting the scene

This chapter looks at the kinds of problems that people experience in their work, and the pressures that come to bear when we are choosing our careers.

By the end you will be able to

set your own circumstances in a broader contextunderstand more about the influences that have led you to where you are today

Although we would all benefit from taking a measured, planned approach to career development, in practice human beings tend to operate on the ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ principle, having been provided with a nervous system that selectively excludes every warning sign, but which leaps into a frenzy of activity when things go spectacularly wrong. So we amble along from day to day, responding to the pressures and opportunities of the here and now, enjoying what can be enjoyed, and never taking the time to think through our working lives in any depth or breadth. Then one day it happens: it may be a nasty experience such as a redundancy, a divorce, a death, an illness, a restructuring, a difficult boss. It may be because a period of your life has come to a natural end, as in leaving school or college, or coming to the end of a vocational training or contract. Or it may be a problem of a more internal kind – a sudden realisation that you’re bored with what you are doing, an imperative to do something different, a reminder that life is marching by and if you are going to do anything exciting or worthwhile, you had better get on with it.

You may be one of those rare people who seek help well before these problems take hold, but many people come to a book such as this because they are having some kind of crisis over their work – and something of immense help to anyone who is going through a work crisis is to know that you are not the only person who has ever had one. You are not the only person who has no idea what to do, has chosen the wrong career or job, has been made redundant, treated badly, had their competency questioned, been passed over for promotion, has subjugated their working lives to others, or has simply fallen out of love with their work.

It’s impossible to go through life without things going wrong from time to time. These rough patches are part of life, and they have an important function. Although governments and health workers have tried for decades to get us to give up smoking, take more exercise, and eat more healthily, there is only one thing guaranteed to make a person leave the house at six every morning in their jogging kit, eat fresh vegetables till they are coming out of their ears, and sue the manufacturers of their favourite brand of cigarette instead of paying them – a nice big heart attack.

Work is the same. It’s the easiest thing in the world to stay in a job you’re not enjoying, or to go along with what someone else wants you to do. It’s easy not to go for that promotion, that new job, that change in career. We like ease. To do something difficult takes a lot more commitment, a lot more energy, and a whole load of courage. If you’re low on these commodities, it may take a crisis.

A work-related crisis has the capacity to make you feel terrible. Work is a fundamental part of our existence, and a serious problem in your working life can have all the charm of an earthquake. But while it’s true that you can learn something of what you enjoy at work by doing nice things in nice jobs, you actually learn so much more when it all goes wrong. That’s not simply because you need to understand what you don’t like in order to understand what you do like (and there’s much truth in that), but because it’s only when things go seriously wrong that you wake up. Adversity has a way of standing up and shouting at us in a way that contentment does not.

So, if you’re having a career crisis, welcome it with open arms. It’s a great opportunity to take a good long look at your career and your life, and make a start towards getting it right. If you’re not having a career crisis, then congratulations on taking avoiding action.

What kinds of career problems are there?

The most common kind of career problems are those that are related to life stages. Just about everyone experiences indecision and confusion at one or more of these. The first fertile period for career problems is during the latter years of school or university – hardly surprising, as what you are expected to do at this stage is decide what you would like to do with the rest of your life. This is an extraordinary requirement to make of young people, who are generally hampered by a paucity of experience on the one hand, and by a surfeit of advice on the other.

The next period of life that has the ability to produce consternation is a few years down the line, when you realise that you have made a terrible mistake. Frantic with indecision in your late teens or early twenties, you chose a career that seemed to be both possible for you and pleasing to those around you. However, over the months and years it gradually dawns on you that you are about as suited to your choice of work as a wax saucepan is to cooking.

Then there’s midlife – which may begin at any time between the ages of thirty-five and fifty. You’ve been working quite happily at a job or career for some time, but you notice your enthusiasm for getting up in the morning is diminishing. Then one day you wake up and realise you’d rather be doing just about anything than going on with your current job.

one day you wake up and realise you’d rather be doing just about anything than going on with your current job

Finally comes the approach of retirement, with all its decisions about when to go, whether to wind down gradually, what you will do when you no longer have to work, and so on. And with people talking about the ‘fourth age’, the period of time after the three score years and ten that previous generations never expected to live beyond, the potential for career crises may be endless!

If life stage is the most common source of anguish when it comes to careers, the second must be change at work. You’re in a job you enjoy, have colleagues you like, a boss you respect, and responsibilities that play to your strengths, and then bang! There’s a restructuring, a merger, a new manager, a new directive, a demand for different products or services, and everything changes. Suddenly there’s a new boss who just can’t wait to put their stamp on everything; you hear talk of redundancy or redeployment; people have to apply for their own jobs; some see the writing on the wall and leave for greener pastures; ways of working are changed and you find yourself with new tasks for which you are untrained, or you find dull or difficult. All these have the ability to turn a thoroughly enjoyable job into a really grim one, and in a very short time. If there is a workplace, anywhere, that is immune to the modern propensity for continual change then I’d like to know about it.

Sometimes related to changes in the workplace, there are also the more personal work crises such as redundancy, being sacked, or taken through disciplinary procedures. Being bullied or harassed at work can be equally devastating. With all these the crisis is deepened by the damaging effect these experiences inevitably have on your self-confidence and general wellbeing.

Another group of problems may arise from personal attributes. Perhaps you set out on a particular pathway and some way along you realise that your likelihood of progression is going to be seriously hampered by something you can do nothing about. Perhaps you find you are not clever enough, not tall enough, not good-looking enough, not male enough, not white enough, not able-bodied enough. You’ve committed much time and commitment to a path, but it now appears blocked or impractical. What now?

Some career paths have a natural conclusion. For example, sporting careers tend to come to an end at certain ages, and child stars don’t necessarily turn into adult stars. Fashion models presumably have to hand in their cards at some stage, and anyone who has devoted their lives to bringing up children knows that children grow up. In many careers, promotion can paradoxically mean an end to the kind of work that first drew you to a career or job. For example, you are taken away from looking after clients and have to manage teams and budgets instead.

And then there are the life events in your personal life. The tough ones of divorce, death, and ill-health, and the nice ones, such as marriage, starting a family, moving home, can all be equally disruptive to a working life.

And finally there’s you yourself. Often related to life stage and life events, you change over time. Something you enjoyed at one stage in your life may lose its appeal later. A willingness to conform to corporate life may evolve into a desire to do your own thing. A drive to earn a lot of money may turn into a longing for time to pursue hobbies and interests. A commitment to caring for clients may become a commitment to caring for family, or a commitment to your family may become an urge to do something for yourself. Or you may quite simply want a change for change’s sake. Human beings are designed to need change. If you put a finger gently on the back of your hand and leave it there you will initially feel it, but after less than a minute the sensation goes. A tiny movement and you feel it again. We need change for stimulation.

Sources of career problems and crises

Life stage (leaving school/college, early working life, mid-life, retirement)Changes at work (mergers, redeployment, new bosses, new structures)Personal work problems (redundancy, sacking, performance problems, bullying)Life events (marriage, children, moving house, divorce, death, ill health)Personal attributes (age, gender, race, physical attributes, ability) Changes in you (interests, values, willingness to work for others)

Figure 1.1

How do people choose their careers?

A theme running through all these potential sources of uncertainty and anxiety is the whole business of career choice. While what you choose is not nearly as crucial as you might think, the question ‘what shall I do?’ is central to many a career emergency. Understanding the pressures and reasons that lead people to choose a particular direction can be helpful.

Brains, culture and parents

Your first choice, and, for an alarming number of people, your last, is made at school or university. Career choices at this stage tend to be based on exam results, cultural values, and the expectations of parents and significant others. Although careers advice and counselling at school and university has certainly improved in recent years, it still tends to be centred around academic achievement. But academic achievement is not always a good guide to what someone will find enjoyable and fulfilling.

academic achievement is not always a good guide to what someone will find enjoyable and fulfilling

Many people who find themselves in professional career pathways are multi-talented, high-achieving all-rounders, who could equally well have become doctors or lawyers, managers or entrepreneurs, professional athletes or musicians. Some abilities are valued by our culture more than others, as are some professions, and that value is reflected not only in the prestige and status that is attached to those professions, but in the financial rewards. The result is that the highly talented teenager who can play Bach Fugues by heart on the piano, or a great game of tennis, who has had major successes in school plays, and received top grades for all their exams, is much more likely to be channelled towards being an accountant than to becoming a musician or actor. There’s a great deal of common sense in this too, as most of us do have a living to earn and you can always play the piano or act in plays as an amateur. The problem is that some people find themselves in professions which they are entirely capable of doing – as evidenced by a string of passed exams and promotions – but which they have never really enjoyed.

Ironically, less academically gifted individuals may stand a better chance of doing what they really love than their brainier counterparts. Take young Max who has never done very well at school, whose parents have regularly sighed, ‘what will become of him?’ His self-esteem has been gradually eroded by a system that values academic prowess, and he knows he’ll never make a lawyer or a doctor or a marine biologist. The major worry to his parents is less what he will do, than whether he will do anything at all. Imagine their delight, therefore, when young Max suddenly announces that he would like to be a chef. Well yes, they say to themselves, he is a wonderful cook, and perhaps he could make himself a living that way. Gradually they realise, given their son is not going to be the next Einstein, that being a chef has a certain ring to it that they could live with a great deal better than long-term drifting from one poorly paid job to another. So no more quadratic equations and French verbs for Max. His parents enthusiastically support him in his endeavours, and at last he finds himself doing something where he excels and that he enjoys.

Imagine Naomi, though. The same age as Max, she has always been top of the class in everything academic. She sailed through primary school on a carpet of praise and prizes, straight into a highly academic, highly selective secondary school, which sends twenty pupils to Oxbridge every year, and turns out astro-physicists and cabinet ministers by the score. Her parents, who have already decided on her Cambridge college and have visions of her being a top class lawyer, are just thrilled with this child. Then one day Naomi announces that she wants to be … a fashion designer. ‘A FASHION DESIGNER!’ comes the appalled response. ‘OVER MY DEAD BODY!’And so it is that Naomi’s private dreams become public, only to be crushed under the next truck.

Male or female?

Gender of course has a enormous part to play in career choice and development. Even though opportunities have increased immeasurably for women over the last fifty years, typical career pathways for men and women are still very different. One of the reasons for this is that many gender stereotypes in the workplace remain, and while some of this may be due to genuine differences between the sexes, much is due to tradition. Women traditionally nurture and men traditionally lead. Even in medicine, where more than fifty percent of medical students are now female, once qualified, women are much more likely to move into general practice, and men much more likely to become surgeons.

typical career pathways for men and women are still very different

The other reason for differences in career choice and direction is that increased opportunities have not altered the biological facts of reproduction. Even when men wish to take an important role in child-rearing, women still bear the children, and most want to play a significant role in their upbringing. While biology means a successful career may be seen more as a bonus than an expectation for women, the corollary is that men are under great pressure to succeed and be breadwinners. When couples have children, research shows that the women work fewer and fewer hours, while the men work more and more. Relationships where the woman earns more than the man have a higher failure rate than when the reverse is true, and if either gives up work in order to look after children, it’s more likely to be the woman.

These different pressures are all played out in the mating game. When men look for a partner, they tend to be attracted to women who are less successful than they are, while women look for men who are either equal or more successful. Men don’t traditionally look for a partner to improve their financial or social status, whereas women often do. So while women understand the need to appear decorative and not too clever in the search for a mate, men understand well the need for status and cash.

In the professions and workplaces where men predominate, employees are expected to work long hours and are not expected to have a life which impinges on their work. It’s not unusual for a man to leave the house before their children wake and return when they’re in bed.

Research has shown that the average time per week that professional men spend with their children can be measured in minutes. Men are under great pressure to conform with this culture, whether or not they like it.

The result of all this is that while career pathways for men and women can look very similar in the early twenties, they look very different by the time they are in their thirties. Women will often start their careers very successfully, tail off while they have their families, and have a resurgence of energy in their forties and fifties. Men will often work themselves extremely hard, at first to succeed in the eyes of the world and potential mates, and then to support their dependants, before grinding into a midlife crisis in their mid-forties or fifties. These different pathways can lead to very different watersheds, and at very different stages in life.

Group norms

Traditions and norms within different sub-groups of populations are responsible for a host of other influences on young people who are choosing their careers. Ethnic group, social class, family traditions – all these exert influence and expectations on their members, whether it’s to conform and stay within the group, or to sally forth and prove themselves in the world outside.

Vocation and inspiration

Sometimes, and quite wonderfully, people know exactly what they want to do, and they pursue it whether or not they have the right exam results, the right attributes, or the support of their parents. With this kind of certainty they are more than likely to succeed. These are the lucky ones.

Career satisfaction

The good news, though, is that specific career choice is not as crucial as you might think, and despite all these pressures many people do find their ways into careers which fulfil, excite and satisfy them. That is largely because the things that people find important about their work tend to be general rather than specific.

the things that people find important about their work tend to be general rather than specific

People often say that having good colleagues is an important source of job satisfaction. Many value intellectual stimulation, meeting challenges, helping people, having fun, being creative, or having the opportunity for working with their hands. These attributes are sufficiently general that they can be found in a host of careers. They are also facets that can vary within careers, and even between jobs that are more or less identical in content. A teacher, for example, could undoubtedly find schools where there were many colleagues who shared their values and interests, and schools where there were very few. So if you know what general qualities in work you’re looking for, it’s not only possible to generate a large number of options where those qualities can be found, you may only need to make very small changes in your current circumstances to find them.

Another factor that contributes to happiness at work is what you take to it, and that is something totally under your control. There’s a tendency in today’s individualistic age to look at what a job or career is going to bring you, rather than what you’re going to give to it. But these two things are inextricably linked. If you go to work with a spring in your step, a wish to contribute, and a kindly attitude towards your co-workers and clients, you have the potential to enjoy just about any job.

Finally, it’s worth remembering that work is not the only part of your life. A characteristic of people having career crises is that work has assumed enormous proportions for them. The fact that they’re unhappy in their jobs, or without a job, or don’t know what to do, can therefore seem catastrophic, and this produces a sense of urgency to sort it all out that’s not at all conducive to good career development. Having a well-balanced life not only gives you the spring in your step that you need to make the best of work, but it reduces the impact of disaster in one particular part of it.

it’s worth remembering that work is not the only part of your life

Chapter Two

Getting in the right frame of mind

This chapter provides some first aid for the spirit.

By the end you should have:

a list of all you have achieved and are proud ofdealt with and dispatched any disappointmentsa method for dealing with past traumasreviewed your current financial situationsome strategies for being cheerful and positive

Most people seek help with their careers because they’ve hit the rocks in some way, and will often be in what might be called a sub-optimal state of mind. The kinds of experience described in the previous chapter tend to produce an abundance of negative thoughts: about yourself, other people, your prospects, your status, your financial situation, your ability, the world in general. Whatever you have decided about the source of your problems, it would be very unusual for someone to come through these thoughts and experiences with their confidence and self-esteem unscathed.

It is extraordinarily difficult to plan a career when your spirits are low. It saps your energy. It holds you back. It tells you that there’s no point in trying such and such an idea because you’ll only screw it up. Every option that looks attractive one minute looks unattainable the next. Don’t be ridiculous, you tell yourself, I’m not capable of that! It is therefore incredibly important that in any career planning process you pay as much attention to your mental state as you do to your plans.

Every chapter of this book is designed to increase your confidence while moving you forward, but this chapter provides a little first aid before you start the process.

What went well?

To feel low all you have to do is concentrate on what is wrong with you and your life; to feel better all you have to do is concentrate on what is good. Reviewing your achievements is one of life’s more enjoyable pursuits, yet people do it surprisingly rarely. How often do you sit down and tot up all your successes? How often do you run through the associated pleasurable occasions on your internal cinema screen? How often do you reward yourself for doing something well? How often do you plan to reward yourself in advance? If you don’t do these things you are missing out on a source of pleasure that is so very easy to experience. So much safer than bungee-jumping. So much cheaper than a holiday. So much more available than sex. So much better for you than alcohol or marijuana.

I have a daughter of primary school age. She attends an exceptional school where achievements of every kind are praised and appreciated, not just the academic ones. Every Friday morning at assembly, a number of certificates are given out. For some children it is for a piece of work they have done, for others it is for helping in a school activity, for another it may be for being kind to classmates, for another it may be for always being cheerful. Every child receives at least two certificates a term, and they value them.

What is so important about the certificate business is that it allows the praise to be tailored to the specific achievements or attributes of the individual child. It is always good to be appreciated, but it is best when the praise is both specific, and ties in with what you value in yourself.

Sometimes heads of departments or organisations give out general praise don’t they? Perhaps they send around a Christmas message telling the staff what a great year they’ve had, and thanking them for their contribution. Now if you live in a praise desert this might seem like a small but welcome puddle, but it will never substitute for appreciation for individual effort. We may have done well as an organisation, you think, but what have I done to contribute? Does the boss know? Does the boss even know I exist?

It often strikes me that adults are just tall children. And adults’ needs are exactly the same: we need to be valued, and we need people to give us compliments, to congratulate us on our achievements, to motivate us, and to give us big hugs when things go wrong. The only real difference is that our culture has decided that adults should be self-reliant, self-motivated, and not in need of hugs. The result is that most people work in places where comments even approaching such praise are pretty thin on the ground. Bosses cannot be relied upon to lavish praise and encouragement. It is therefore extremely important to make sure you praise and encourage yourself. Regularly.

A little while ago a woman came to see me. A middle-grade manager in the public sector, she had decided that it was time for a move and had asked me for help with an application for a job. She had told me she particularly wanted some help with her level of confidence. It turned out that she was having major difficulties with a colleague at work. From the start it was obvious she was low, and none of the talking we did about her application and what she needed to do to maximise her chances of getting it really lifted what was like a low mist hanging over her. A different strategy was required.

I asked her: ‘What would you bring to this new job?’ She told me how much experience and knowledge she had, how she was good at getting on with people, and getting disparate groups of people to work together. ‘What sort of things have you done?’ I asked her. She described the projects she had organised, how she had facilitated others to develop their own ways of assessing how they were doing, and developing systems to make improvements. ‘And what else?’ She told me more and more, so much more than when we first talked about why she was right for the job. ‘And what did you do exactly that made all this happen?’ Then she explained how she planned her projects, how she motivated people to become involved, how she supplied the resources people needed to complete their tasks. The more she told me, the more animated she became, and the more I was able to see what drove this woman, how committed she was to her work, and to doing it well. By the time she’d finished I only wished I’d had a job to give her, there and then.

What she was doing in this process was going through all the things she was pleased with, her achievements and what it was about her that had made them possible. And I was encouraging her to be specific. Talking about her experience and ability to get on with people produced no spark at all, but when she remembered what those strengths had meant in practice, what a difference!

On another occasion I was consulted by a senior academic in a university department, successful to any outsider, but actually unhappy. The source of his unhappiness, he told me, was that he wanted and needed to be a professor. He had two reasons for wanting this – he needed the credibility in order to attract research funding, and he wanted the status in order to feel good about himself, to boost his confidence. The root of the problem was that people younger, less experienced and less able than him had been given chairs, and this had sapped his confidence.

We set out on a process of finding out why he should have a professorial chair. As with my other client, he started off low key and uncertain, then became more positive and animated as he described all he had done, all he had achieved: his research, his book, his students; his specialist subject. Just giving him permission to blow his own trumpet for a while turned him from a quiet and unhappy individual into a passionate and happy one. The interesting thing was, the next time I saw him he had done all the things we had worked out together for improving his chances of getting a chair, but had found in doing so, and in reviewing his achievements and what was important to him, he had increased his confidence and sense of credibility to such an extent that he wasn’t at all sure he needed or even wanted a chair any more.