WFED 578 – Lesson 2 Blog Reflection

From your own experience, describe an occasion of consulting in which you acted as an expert. Did you solve the problem?

I am currently in a role as an executive coach in my organization. Late last year, I was asked to facilitate and lead a working virtual session with multiple senior leaders on prioritization. I have over 16 years of experience at my organization and am often viewed as an individual with strong organizational and prioritization skills.

We began the two hour session with honest conversation. The group knew each other well and most knew me personally or at least by reputation so a strong foundational trust was present. We talked about what prioritization meant to each of us and how strong or weak we were with this skill.

We moved from a meaningful conversation into a Mural Board activity where each of the leaders listed their top OKRs within the board and then we used a Bulls Eye diagram to move in the top 3 for each leader and then the overall top 3 goals of the team – well at least that was the hope and goal of my session.

Each leader had no problem identifying their top 3 goals, but once we moved into the over top 3 for the team, deep difficulty of prioritization came strongly into play for many. Ultimately, the interesting dynamic of the team is that their overall leader was present for this activity and from what I witnessed, there was nervousness about picking the top three in her presence. She as well shared openly, that picking three was nearly impossible and that in her opinion there were at least six major focuses for the remainder of the year. The team was openly and visibly frustrated.

As a coach and facilitator, especially having strong trust with the team, I had to be candid and direct which I was. A quote that resonated with the team was “these are just words on a piece of paper if you do not have a clear picture of your top goals. Are six achievable? Can you pick three big rock goals and then three small rock goals to differentiate? You must in order to truly prioritize.” The overall team strongly agreed with me and was able to move forward thankfully, however, the senior leader of the team, still shook her head in some frustration. In that moment, I was able to help them better view their problem of prioritization and was able to return to them about six weeks later to see that they had stuck to our structure and goal.  AND thanks to a few technology setbacks, a few of those priorities took a back seat, helping them see more clearly their top goals : )  That helps!!