Energetic career development

Many businesses are increasingly discovering that they need to draw the creative energy of their staff in order to be successful in the competitive world. Employers are also discovering, as the management guru Peter Drucker advised them, that good staff are volunteers; that is they choose to work for businesses whose core values and purposes are in line with their own.

For the ambitious, career minded individual, who wants to succeed in and on their own terms, this means that they need to have formulated both their own personal ideology and envisioned their own futures so that they can be top of the employers choice list.

But it is more than that, it is also about ensuring that the individual can make good applications and choices for the organisation that will make the most of their creative energy. Too many budding executives, managers and entrepreneurs leave this to a whim or worse, to others to decide. 

An executive coach knows that:

• Unearthing personal ideology (your values and purpose) is a discovery process.
• Envisioning your future is a creative process.
• Values, purposes and vision need to be consistent (or congruent, which is an alignment process).
• A plan of action that is both rigorous, adaptable and needs to be intelligently set out and followed.

In the discovery process your executive coach might use the ‘thinking environment’ to create the space for reflections. They may ask insightful questions; make challenges or debate scenarios which will enable you to uncover what is truly important to you. They will help you articulate it in your words so that it becomes your personal ideology.

In the creative process, the coach will help you be confident and state clearly (and boldly) what it is that you wish to achieve – to envision your future. This will provide the basis for planning and at this stage the executive coach will begin to help you understand which areas of self-development you need, how you and your family, social and organisational networks tick (this is about understanding the systems you interact with). This leads into a greater understanding or alignment of who you are,what you want and, indeed, who you want it with.  

The action plan is about how you will deliver on that alignment. It will address what needs to be developed, stopped, changed or improved in order for you to fulfil your purpose. It is a personal and individualised process, so choose your guide well.