How to open up your future in 30 minutes

Imagine that it’s some time in the future and construct five different futures for yourself. Make them distinct. Visualise them in some detail and write down what you’re doing and how you’re feeling. What you like and what you don’t. What here excites you? What fills you with dread?

I heard about this exercise and thought that now was a good time for me to try it out. I found pretty useful, even in the half hour or so that I allowed for it. Here’s what I noticed and realised:

• My life could plausibly turn out in quite different ways over the next five years, even restricting myself to fairly plausible options. This exercise can help to open up ideas and possibilities and I think it’s worth trying hard to have at least one radical, outlier scenario to give you some food for thought. Perhaps allow yourself an ‘if I could wave a magic wand’ option.
• Some futures excited me more than others. I realised that actually doing something different, beyond my current comfort zone, is something I’d like to do.
• All scenarios contained something that I found attractive, some outlet for creativity or growth. I suppose they all contained less nice features too.
• I value some outcomes more than others. For example, achieving objective success in my career is not a good outcome if it prevents me from being an active dad is not an attractive option. This helped me to understand my ‘bottom lines’ a bit better.
• The different scenarios could have important implications for other people such as partners and children

I didn’t spend long on this exercise and it could easily be extended. For example, if you like one of the futures, can you work backwards to work out how to get there? Or can you think about how to incorporate the attractive bits within other scenarios? Or can you assess the likelihood of each scenario, or their resilience to changes beyond your control?

Hit me, with feedback, one more time

I was recently unsuccessful at a job interview and I must confess it hurt. I thought I wouldn’t care that much but I did. It wasn’t the money. In part it was about my external status (others being promoted when I’m not) but most of all it was the blow to my own self perception. Subconsciously I had thought I was good enough and I didn’t like being told that I wasn’t.

I asked for feedback and when it came, it hurt some more. Which is why we all avoid it when things don’t go right. It hurts to be told that we didn’t come up to the standard required, and the reasons why too.

However, genuine and specific feedback, perhaps especially the negative kind, can be worth its weight in gold if we engage with it properly. I’ve told enough people that “there is no failure, only feedback” and now it’s my turn to put this into practice. This is my attempt to do so.

My first difficulty has been attaining some distance. My immediate emotional response to what I was hearing was anger – internally I was saying ‘how can you say that about me? It’s not true!’. Only now, a week after hearing the feedback, am I beginning to process it properly, and think about what it means.

There are at least three things I’ve learned.

First, in terms purely of interview technique, my answers were too long and detailed. This, I confess, was a surprise to me and I wouldn’t thought about how to correct it – and that’s why feedback is so useful. Perhaps I over-prepared and had too much to say. Next time I need to work on the pithy summary.

Second, I needed to demonstrate that I could make tough decisions, and communicate difficult messages to stakeholders. I could probably make better use of examples from my career, but there is probably also a message here to get out and seek that kind of experience, perhaps in a new role.

Third, the interview panel questioned whether my leadership style was sufficiently flexible. I strongly emphasised my coaching approach to management and leadership, and I’m glad that this came across. It is what I believe in. The panel believed that such an approach wasn’t realistic at a higher management grade, or at least not always. It is simply too time intensive. Moreover, some people might not respond to a coaching style, and at some points a more directive approach is likely to be necessary.

I think this third point requires more thought and exploration on my part – and I’ll return to it in a later post.