5 lessons I learn as a Young Consultant in the Public Service
I made the mistakes so you don’t make them! Distilling 5 key lessons I’ve learnt in the past 1.5 years at work as Leadership Development Consultant. Here’s a quick overview:
Context triumps Content.
Effortlessness requires effort.
Show up even when you don’t feel like it.
Think in terms of systems – yet we can only think as far as we can see – so we need to expand our capacity to ‘see’. And when you see it, own it.
The way you do it matters as much as what you do.
1. Context triumps Content.
I cannot stress how important this is. I once ran a coaching programme with a group of officers. (I am intentionally keeping the details vague so ensure anonymity of the client.) Half the session was spent on addressing participants’ genuine queries on why they were here for the coaching programme – because they can’t see how the coaching skills they were learning can be applied in their job context. The concerns raised were very valid – they were in a time pressed, high stakes situation where any mistake could cost a life. This seemed to clash head on with the coaching philosophy, which frames mistakes as a learning opportunity – only at a very high cost which participants were not willing to risk it. When the bigger ‘why’ and context is not addressed, I notice that participants are not able to progress with the intended learning outcomes and there are many encounters with resistance.
What I learnt was that understanding the job functions and where these coaching skills could be applied was key, and helping participants to see this. They understand that coaching is useful, but just didn’t see a way in which it could be applied effectively in their roles. In the following run, the facilitators adapted and scaffolded the difference between coaching, mentoring and being directive – when is useful for which context. With a better understanding of their roles, the facilitators also customized the coaching questions in the work scenarios of the participants. This customization turned out to be extremely helpful in meeting participants where they were at, and also achieving the learning outcomes of the programme.
I have another example – this was with a group of young officers, who learned the feedback SBI framework (Situation, Behaviour, Impact model) very quickly. The concern here was, given that they are young in service, they often find it challenging to give feedback to senior staffs or their bosses, for various reasons – it could be out of fear of looking incompetent, or feeling hopeless like things won’t change much anyway, or not feeling safe to do so. Of course, most of us struggle with that, let alone young officers in their first role! It seemed like some got bored quickly after picking up the SBI framework, and at the end of the programme we received some responses that this segment on feedback was not practical or useful for them as it neglected the ‘power dynamics in the real world’.
What I learnt was that we needed to address where the concerns lie, and again help participants see how giving feedback could be done. On hindsight, there’s a lot to unpack actually:
What is your intention of giving feedback? Is it more about you saying what you notice? Or is it about them being able to benefit from what you can contribute?
What are your expectations? Given that we can’t expect people to change just because of we have given them our feedback.
What is it that you needed, that was not met?
What do you feel about giving feedback? And what does that mean for you?
In facilitating leadership development, we often find ourselves in this tension – between meeting participants where they are at, and also meeting the learning outcomes. It’s a dance, like jazz, there is a performance to accomplish, but how we do it – it requires one to be present to the learner’s needs, and also trusting ourselves to know when we can deviate from the plan to address their real concerns, and then dancing together, and ending on the step with ease and flow. (I don’t think any learner would intentionally want to make things ‘difficult’.)
Regardless – Context holds content. The content will not land if it’s not addressed to the participant’s context. This was my key learning, and I feel that the above mistakes were a price I wouldn’t want to pay again.
2. Effortlessness requires effort
This is a principle in life to go by. I’ve recently started singing classes, and one of the biggest issues is that people exert too much pressure to hit the notes, and it causes vocal strain. My vocal coaches would share that it’s not about pushing, but using less effort. That in itself, takes lots of effort because I’m used singing in a certain way. Singers who sing effortlessly – who look and feel like it’s effortless – have gone through years of training (though some do possess ‘natural’ talent which may have helped).
It's the same principle which applies for mastery. When we are new to something, it naturally feels more uncomfortable, as it is difficult and requires more effort. It’s a new muscle we’re trying to build. And since I’m a young consultant, naturally many things are new to me. But the more we do it, the more practice we get, it gets easier. It’s also important to spend time to reflect and draw our lessons from it. This applies the same for most kinds of work. The effort behind the work is often something people don’t see. And it’s easy to talk ourselves out of doing the hard work, or feel like we’re not good enough. That is not true. Effortlessness requires a lot of effort.
On the bright side, as young working adults, we’re being paid to learn – isn’t that great?
3. Show up even when you don’t feel like it
Writing is a struggle for me – and despite saying I want to write so many times in my journal, I haven’t got around writing consistently. I want to write because it helps me to consolidate my thinking and reflect on it, and I get a lot of satisfaction when I share it with others and if people have found it useful. But somehow when I just didn’t feel like it, I don’t do it.
What I realized is that my need for perfection sometimes gets in the way, and I wanted to be inspired in order to write – which is honestly very rare. I’m aware that if I do write more – the quality may not be as high, but I would become a better writer as I build in this habit. Consistency is really important, as we fall to the level of our systems and habits. The question is, how?
I recently chanced upon the Competence Motivation Theory (which is something we share with managers on how might they delegate work to others) – it centers on the idea that people are driven to engage in activities to develop or demonstrate their skills. As I’m writing this, my ‘why’ gets clearer too and I am increasing my personal motivation in the process. I also feel inspired as I write (as opposed to the other way round). I see writing as a very tangible way in how I can create an impact too – well-crafted emails for example, can be a real joy to read. Writing is also way in which I can improve the way I think, and quality copywriting it’s a skill people would pay for! (Hopefully I can keep these blogposts up! I’m paying $168/year for square space, got to make my money’s worth.) The above are all reasons that keep me motivated. And then gaining competency is a matter of time.
Bottomline is, if you find yourself making excuses and not taking action, perhaps take a pause and ask yourself, what’s holding you back? What drives you to want to do this in the first place? If it keeps coming up for you, there must be something that matters to you. So what is that exactly?
PS. In my view, it’s important to create the influence I want in my life (than be blindly influenced), to build support structures that keep me accountable towards my goals. I find that the most powerful accountable structures involve another person (e.g. a learning group which meets at a set timing), or involve monetary investment of sorts (e.g. signing up for a Krav Maga package).
4. Think in terms of systems – yet we can only think as far as we can see – so we need to expand our capacity to ‘see’.
We are individuals living in an ecosystem, and sometimes we don’t think much of the impact of our actions on others.
I realized this when I made a mistake at work which impacted an important group of stakeholders. My decision had only accounted for certain factors, and I had neglected how the stakeholders would receive it. To address this mistake, I had to review and reach out to the impacted stakeholders individually. I can’t share much about it in detail, but I will share what I have learnt from it below.
I learnt that in such situations of ‘crisis’, communications (again, writing!) has to be highly customized, and to speak to the concern of each person. It’s important to highlight my intentions, and acknowledge the mistake, and ask for feedback for areas I could improve on. We also have to examine why it happened and put into processes to prevent it from happening. This is where guiding principles are useful, so that decisions are objective, and the system has a way of regulating itself.
Another example: I noticed that in some project meetings, there is a pattern where agenda is unclear/not set, and decisions made kept changing on the fly, and I was growing increasingly frustrated, as I notice myself being reactive. Now to be honest, I initially blamed the person who set up the meeting, but then realized there wasn’t much point playing victim. I realized I had to voice my expectations and honor my needs – and the responsibility lies with me, now that I see it. What I did was to plan out what was needed, and shape the agenda prior to the meeting – so that this issue does not happen again.
In summary, there are actually a few principles here and here’s how we can apply it:
Expand your ability to ‘see’. Think about how your actions or words, spoken or unspoken, affects others. Most of the time the only way to know is to ask for feedback. This is important because it helps you to see the impact of your actions, and whether it aligns with the outcomes you are trying to achieve.
The more you can see, the more options there are. I think when we don’t see the impact of our actions, we’re usually more fixated on a certain way of doing things as we unconsciously neglect factors we don’t see. Out of sight, out of mind right? So by learning to see how we influence and impact others, we know ourselves better and knowing when to flex which muscles to achieve our intentions, which I think is an invaluable skill.
If you see it, own it. Anticipate challenges and brainstorm options to address them before it happens. This does comes with experience, but the principle applies – if you see the issue, it’s a matter of choice if you want to take responsibility for it, or not. And either is fine, it’s about making the choice which leads you to your intended outcomes.
5. The way you do it matters as much as what you do
What I’m referring to here is the state of mind as I am working on the project. One of my key tasks was to improve the design of a leadership programme, and because I felt pressured to churn out something, I felt very stressed across the 4-5 days, and it left me in a less creative, more distracted state because I was just trying to get things done. Looking back, it felt a little like mindless busyness, which really isn’t helpful for the work.
So what I’ve learnt is that it’s important to prepare our state of mind for the work that we’re doing. The way we approach has a significant impact on the quality of output, and outcomes. The most practical way I see would be to create pauses in between projects, so your brain feels more rested and focus to work on the next one, and really question yourself what’s the most important thing you would like to achieve out of it. It’s good to prepare and prime our mind and body to be in a more relaxed state, the more important the job is, the more important to prepare and not just jump into things.
What I have noticed about colleagues who I admire is that it’s all in the small things – the way emails are crafted, the way certain issues are framed and how it’s being communicated with care, sincerity, or humour, depending on what the situation requires.
Am I approaching it as something I just want to get done, or am I approaching it in a way in which I want enjoy the process? Am I approaching it in a way which builds or breaks personal connection? The way I approach a situation would have already primed me to behave in a certain way. And particularly in leadership development work, we can’t just ‘get it done’ and rush through the process. Even seemingly administrative matters, are not purely administrative, because it’s about the way we are with the client, in how we respond to them over emails or texts to build connection. Much of our work is to bring the human-ness of our interactions in a system which feels bureaucratic and impersonal. Connection comes before content, too. (Just note to self as I can be pretty task oriented, especially when I’m feeling stressed!)
If you’ve read till here, thank you so much for reading! Would love to hear your thoughts and comments about the post. Which one(s) stood out for you? Also, I’m looking out for content ideas so do let me know what might be topics that interest you.
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