This week, I want to tell you about a recent coaching moment that stuck with me.
Someone I was working with kept asking me for the fastest path or solution to an ongoing problem. This is the same ol’ thing they'd been circling for months, the kind that shows up in every one-on-one and every team meeting in a slightly different costume. They wanted a workaround (don't we all), but I couldn't give them one.
I had to tell them what I'm about to tell you: There isn't a single, straight path to the end.
No, really. It doesn't exist! This is tough to hear, but the people who get good at doing hard things aren't the ones who found a clever way around them; they're the ones who stopped looking for the emergency exit and started asking better questions for a solution that sticks.
What’s your go-to instinct in these situations? (I used to avoid these situations altogether and pretend like they didn’t exist!)
When a hard, recurring problem shows up in your team, what's your first instinct?
You are always in choice
This is difficult for some to hear, but it's a really simple truth, even if it's sometimes uncomfortable: You're always in choice, even when it doesn't feel like it. Even when the circumstance is unfair. Even when someone else made the mess. You can't always control what lands on your desk, but you can always control what you do next with it.
That gap between the two is where accountability actually lives. And this is one topic I LOVE to talk about with teams because it really does solve a lot of potential people problems.
Most of us default to one of two modes when things get hard.
We slide into a victim mindset, where the problem is happening to us and we're just waiting it out.
We step into an empowerment mindset, where we accept the reality in front of us and start working within it.
The leaders who move differently, the ones people actually want to follow through hard stretches, are the ones who catch themselves sliding and choose the second option on purpose. So let's work on this together.
I'm building out a full version of this work in the free group coaching session I'm hosting next week. I'll walk through what it actually looks like to shift from feeling stuck to feeling in control through real accountability. We'll also go over the work it takes to go from a victim mindset to an empowerment mindset, and I'll share the four steps I've developed with companies to build true accountability on a team.
If you've ever caught yourself waiting for circumstances to change before you do, this session is the right one for you!
On the BFF playlist: to acknowledge some of the hard work to be done here, I've added a great song on the BFF playlist called "No Shortcuts," by Heather Maloney and Darlingside. There's a line early in the song where the singer gets told, flat out, that where she wants to go doesn't have an easy road to it. She has to take the long way. I heard it years ago, and it's followed me around ever since—because most of the things worth getting to aren't down a straight, easy road.
This week’s #1 to-do
Join my free group coaching session. I'm keeping it small on purpose; there are only 50 spots, so there's real time for questions and back-and-forth, not just me talking at a screen. I’m so excited to spend some time with the people who make this newsletter worth writing!
See you there,
Lauran Arledge
Founder, Bold Font
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