 Welcome to the March e-letter from Crystal Clear Consulting. Crystal Clear Consulting enables new leaders and leaders with changing roles to quickly maximize their effectiveness. Through coaching, team development and cohort development, Crystal Clear Consulting helps leaders address their current challenges, imagine new possibilities and create leadership practices that support their goals and vision. |
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Do You Reflect and Plan?
In the movie “The Candidate,” Bill McKay (Robert Redford) is recruited to compete against a popular presidential candidate. After an unexpected victory, McKay turns to his campaign manager and asks, “Marvin, what do we do now?”
While we laugh at this political satire, this focus on campaigning rather than on preparing to govern is not unlike how many of us face professional transitions.
You want to apply your skills and knowledge to work in higher education and were recently hired at a local university. Now you feel you are in another country with different language, customs, and rituals.
Or
You have applied for more senior positions in your institution and recently received a promotion. Now you have no idea what to do.
Or
You have had a long and satisfying career and are reasonably well prepared financially for retirement. But what will you do with your time and energy?
None of these accomplishments is a surprise, yet we are often unprepared.
In each of these situations what can help you feel prepared is less emphasis on doing and responding, and more emphasis on reflection and planning.
Reflection and planning take you off “auto-pilot.” Without them, we tend to move into the next situation assuming we should continue doing what has made us successful to date, or acting as we have seen others in similar situations. Neither reaction is necessarily appropriate.
Reflection and planning require pausing the external action, studying what is occurring within and around you, and making explicit decisions about how you want to proceed.
In response to this need, we have created a workshop format that guides you through a reflection and planning process while focusing on one of these transitions. See the sidebar for more information about the upcoming session, “Just Promoted: Now What?”
Along with interactive workshops, there are books which might help guide you through these transitions such as “The Answer to How is Yes” by Peter Block and “The First 90 Days” by Michael Watkins.
What transition are you experiencing that might benefit from more reflection and planning?
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