I’ve been working in the field of training (or in recent years now more often known as ‘learning’) and development virtually my entire 30 year career. I’m truly passionate about the advances people make in their work and lives when they develop the skills, knowledge and behaviours needed to succeed and then implement them to achieve their potential at work or success in their business.
Sometimes people achieve amazing personal transformations through undergoing development. They understand what it is they are doing or not doing that is holding them back, and they use the development opportunity to challenge old ways, try something new and then acquire new levels of ability and success.
It’s great when this happens! It’s why I love my job.
But sometimes there is no transformation. For whatever reason the person doesn’t make the transition from old ways to new. A whole host of reasons could exist for this including:
- they don’t agree with what they are being asked to do differently
- they don’t understand the benefit of changing
- they prefer to maintain the status quo
- there is no incentive to change
- they dislike the method of development that is offered
- they are not supported enough to step out of a comfort zone and to take a risk to do something differently
- their circumstances just prevent them from being any different – they are doing the best they can with the situation they’re in.
Over the past year I’ve been working to unravel the paradox of the business owner who wants to achieve a whole lot more from their business, but who, after investing substantial sums of money on success programmes, high level coaching schemes, breakthrough systems etc etc, still finds themselves struggling to achieve more. How can the promised formula NOT work, particularly if it commands a premium price? It has clearly worked for the person who is selling it – and in fact much of the sales pitch is surrounded by evidence of the success the coach or trainer has achieved by using this formula.
If only it was as simple as taking someone else’s formula and adopting it as our own. Congratulations to any of you who have been able to achieve transformational change through implementing someone else’s ‘formula’. I know there are people for whom following a formula has worked. But I also know very many for whom the steps, stages, formulas or blueprints just don’t deliver. They started with enthusiasm and belief, but it just didn’t last. Why?
I suspect it might be like paying for a monthly gym membership on the basis that ‘if you know you are paying you are more likely to go’…well, we all know that doesn’t work for many people! And we all know that at the end of the day we’ve only got ourselves to blame for falling off the gym wagon…or is that actually the case?
I’ve spent the past year exploring and unpicking why success formulas just don’t work for everyone and one of the more obvious conclusions I’ve come to is that achieving success is just not as simple as following a prescribed formula. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it was? For a coach, defining a formula is the easy bit. Selling it is a little bit harder. Creating an environment where the formula works for each and every one of us is an entirely different challenge. That’ s the bit we are supposed to get on with ourselves, yet what I have found is that is the bit business owners need most help with.
My business clients work with me to ‘fast forward’ their businesses. I never promise them a formula for success, but I have been beta-testing an approach to help them achieve success and prosperity that addresses the bit that following a formula seems to leave out.
What is emerging from the work I’ve done so far is the idea of Integrity in Action* – that is, knowing that the actions we take that derive from complete and utter honesty and truth, about oneself and one’s own motivations, aspirations, intentions, values and beliefs.
Where integrity exists, actions tend to be the right ones. When the right actions are taken, generally the right results are achieved. Getting to the point of taking the right actions is not nearly as easy as we might think – and simply taking an action that someone else says is the right one, is not nearly as reliable as the expensive price tags might indicate.
I’m going to be writing more articles about the components that make up my Integrity in Action* approach and I look forward to sharing the material I’m creating as it unfolds. And of course, I’ll never be referring to it as a formula for success!!
*Integrity in Action is the copyright of Miranda Jenkins and Skills to Go Ltd 2019