Finding Your Primary Greatness
A year back we switched our coaching process around. Instead of diving straight into a 360 debrief we wanted to ensure that the first coaching session was all about the participant and the relation-building with their coach. We call this “Discovery Session” and its intention is to build trust between participant and coach and create a positive framing where the individual’s needs are heard and their ambitions defined. Adding this session has increased understanding of the following 360 survey and the results reported on. Instead of feeling anxious or – sometimes – agitated by the 360 results, the Discovery Session supports the report to be better utilised as the intended tool it is to unearth areas of improvements. Moreover, the positive framing and the participant’s increased readiness for the report, help accelerate needed changes.
If you want to find out more about the thinking behind our Discovery Session and how change happens more effectively when we are feeling positive and in control of the needed change – read this post.
For most, the above the makes sense, but it’s not uncommon to regress or making the mistake of negatively enforcing change with pressure, fear tactics and blame culture. We all want to make change happen without resistance and we are too impatient waiting for the “right” moment when everyone’s ready. If it’s not with someone else, it is with ourselves, as we succumb to, what Stephen R. Covey, organisational consultant and author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, named Secondary Greatness. Secondary Greatness are the trappings that comes from success: positions, popularity and public image. The opposite, Primary Greatness, is what comes from contribution and provides a kind peace and satisfaction that Secondary Greatness cannot give.
In our moments of frustration or perplexing situations we need to take a moment to face inwards and examine our motives – or risk to surrender to the demands of Secondary Greatness. We need to move from negative framing to positive framing to unleash Primary Greatness. We can do this with the help of the self-affirmation exercise below. Essentially, this is what we aim to establish in our Discovery Sessions – a clear and positive understanding of one’s own self-concept before tackling change.
A good self-affirmation has five characteristics:
It’s personal – meaning it is written in the first person.
It’s positive rather than negative – meaning that it affirms what is good and right.
It’s present tense – meaning you are doing it now or have the potential for doing it.
It’s visual – meaning you can see it clearly in your mind’s eye.
It’s emotional – meaning you have strong feelings attached to it.
Application
Take a script, your negative inner voice, you usually tell yourself. Now rewrite that script. What can you affirm about yourself? What’s good or even great about you and about the contribution you can make?