Enough is Enough: A Managers Guide to coaching on Fulfilment and Happiness

Being a great manager is a blessing and a curse. The closer you get to your team members, the more you will inevitably be engaged on life’s tougher questions. Sometimes it’s because a team member is looking for guidance. And, sometimes it’s because they are generally interested in how you, personally, think about and navigate these topics for yourself.

So, the catch 22 here is that it often isn’t enough to just sprout some theoretical bullsh!t. It’s helpful and inspiring to not only have an approach but also that you have used and applied that approach. Being able to talk from experience, and share the insights you got is invaluable. This provides direction and exposure, and builds more trust with your team member (credibility and intimacy).  

But, overall, any good approach for one of your team members is a good approach for you – so let’s see what insights you get out.

“What does fulfillment and happiness mean to you?”

I’ve been asked this question many many times. As staff navigate their careers, they are constantly bombarded with choices and trade offs that will have an ultimate impact on their direction and destination(s). Having a sense of what the destination is, informs the road you should take. At least in theory.

So, how does one define what happiness means?

Sir Alfred Hitchcock, the famous English film director, was asked in an interview what happiness meant to him. He responded:

“A clear horizon. With nothing to worry about on your plate. Only things that are creative, not destructive.”

Fulfillment is different to Purpose

It’s helpful to draw this distinction. Fulfillment is a satisfactory level of achievement. Purpose is something you do or contribute. Obviously, we would like to align the two as far as possible: “I am doing things in line with my purpose and it has given me a fulfilling life thus far.”

I know a lot of people that are very passionate about Not For Profits and societal contributions. In seeking to channel their efforts (purpose) in that direction, many went to work with organisations such as the Gates Foundation or the Clinton Foundation. After a year or two – many got quite disillusioned and left because they weren’t fulfilled. Why? The bureaucracy and administration inherent in these massive organisations means that a lot of time, energy and money is lost to internal inefficiency and doesn’t actually make into the mouths it is supposed to feed – so to speak.

Second time round, any one of these individuals would have a better definition of what fulfillment means to them and would ask the questions: “How much of every dollar invested yields direct impact?” or “How big is the team? Is it small, flat and high impact? Or big, bureaucratic and over-head heavy?”

People are faced with this question all the time in their careers. If I do x, will I be able to achieve y. If I take job a, will it get me to y faster.

Part of the problem I’ve faced when engaging on this is a very unclear view of what y is.

“To be a millionaire.” Or “To own a mansion on the water.”

Really?

Not very original, thoughtful or colourful.  Lazy, to be precise. We can do better.

A process to help us define fulfillment

I’m going to talk about a tool. And, before you roll your eyes, it’s about how you use the tool. And, I believe it is used incorrectly quite a bit.

The Wheel of Life is a life coaching tool. Coachees rate different aspects of their lives to look for areas to focus on. It’s a spider diagram with varying segments, depending on the version you’re using. As always, I make up my own with the facets and wording that is important to me.

This is where it gets useful: Forget about where you are! Your recent break up? Your crumby boss? Forget it. Also, forget about where you are going and all your current assumptions about the “mansion on the water”.

Open a spreadsheet, put the categories across the top (columns) and ALL the even ratings (2 – 4 – 6 – 8 – 10) along the side (row labels). Now, take some time, do some soul searching, and fill in every single block.

Starting with our physical environment example, what would an 8 / 10 look like for you?

Let me walk you through my insight: I love dogs. I have two large dogs. While I love fly fishing and being on the water, it is more important to me to have a large yard for my dogs and to have a fence to keep my black explorer dog secure. Living on the water with my dogs would be undesirable. I have a propensity to take on new hobbies. If I have space, I fill the space. Kayaks, art supplies, golf, yoga, books – I’d have a room for each. The more space I have, the more I fill it with stuff that ends up staring at me and making me feel unhappy about my space. Also, the upkeep and administrative pain of having unused space is wasteful and I simply don’t want that in my life.

Unbeknownst to me – the 8/10 house of my dreams was the house I was in. I just hadn’t taken the time to realise and appreciate that.

Career 8/10: A big insight for me was that it is most important to me to work with a smart, fun team. I am not defined by the industry or product I am in. I care about the team I am surrounded by. Think about how that changes the way I would think about a job search, interview process or starting a business…

Investing the time and effort to really flesh out a rich narrative for each block is key. A magazine cut out of a mansion on a “dream board” is a totally bullsh!t exercise in my opinion. Do better than that. Use your words.  

I obviously did the same thing for a 2/10 and a 4/10.

In all cases, a 2/10 was so absolutely improbable that it really made me wonder how I could ever be anxious about something. The amount of poor decisions, lack of choices, and externalities that would have to coincide for me to get to a 2/10 on any scale was just impossible. I guess sometimes we feel like we aren’t achieving and don’t really take stock of what “not achieving” would tangibly mean for us. Specifically, in reality – not just in our minds.

As always, writing this down is key. Clarifying your thought processes and distilling them into words, onto a page, cuts through the lifetime worth of sub-conscious assumptions.  

Once you have completed all the blocks, its “objectively” clear where you sit on each of the scales and what the rich, tangible gap is between where you are and where an 8 or 10 may be. You can then turn this into practical goal setting and plans and get going.

Some aspects are personal. But, if asked, I would strongly encourage you to hold your team members accountable to do the exercise and share any shareable insights. Not only to bring you closer, but, also, so that you can support and help them in achieving their well defined and truly impactful “dreams”.

Be an executive manager that changes lives more broadly than just in the boardroom. Go and distil some dreams - to find the essence of executive fulfillment.

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