Several years after he had embarked on a career with an international firm, Shaun had enjoyed a series of promotions and was travelling extensively in his job. The feedback from the company’s directors suggested he would be in line for a promotion to the senior levels of the firm’s management.

Shaun had set out to contribute through his work to the well-being of his family. He had seen how distant his parents had become and had felt the impact in his own childhood. He was determined to do it differently. As well as contributing to the finances of his family he wanted to maintain a loving relationship with his wife and to be present as a father to his children.

At the same time, the further Shaun climbed the career ladder, the more his relationship with his family was becoming strained. His wife felt the burden of looking after their children whilst Shaun was away on business and their relationship with each other was beginning to suffer. The children were showing signs of “treading on eggshells” around their parents. Shaun was feeling low.

Shaun had set out to place his family at the centre of his concerns and yet, over time, he had lost sight of this aim. He had started instead to vote for career progress. It was time for him to start voting for what he really wanted.

Voting for what you want is about taking actions that support your most valued intentions. This may be about taking steps towards your goals. It may be about behaving in line with your values. It is certainly about how you spend your time.

Here are some questions to help you to explore what it means for you to vote for what you want:

• To what extent does the way you spend your time match those things you most want in your life?
• To what extent are you guided in your choices by a clear sense of what you want?
• What are the areas in which there is a gap between what you want and the choices you’re making?
• What needs are you meeting by the actions you take in those areas in which you are not voting for what you want?

I wonder, what other questons are waiting to be explored by you in the area of voting for what you want?

As an employee, Alex was beginning to feel a sense of desperation at the number of times he’d given generously to employers only to see how they promoted others ahead of him. The voice in his head told him he was being taken for a ride. What’s more, Alex noticed that those colleagues who were being promoted ahead of him were people he didn’t rate. He couldn’t see what work they were doing and they seemed to be taking all the glory.

Alex was married with young children and he was beginning to feel particularly sour about the impact on his wife and children. He felt he deserved faster promotion and higher pay. One day, when he shared his feelings with a colleague, his colleague asked him if he’d made any enquiries to find out what was slowing his promotion prospects. Only then did Alex think to ask his manager what he could do to achieve promotion.

Whilst Alex was nervous about asking for feedback, the feedback his manager gave him enabled him to understand some of the assumptions he was making and to adjust his approach in the light of new information. For Alex, this was the beginning of learning to learn.

The committed learner brings an approach to all situations which is open to learning. This approach presupposes that fears are there to be faced, that those people whom we find most challenging are our best teachers, that those situations we find most difficult provide opportunities to learn. These are the people who, in our current recession, are looking for the learning that adversity can bring.

Here are some questions to help you to explore how “match fit” you are in the area of learning:

• As you look back over recent years, what have been your biggest areas of learning?
• What does your learning in recent years tell you about your readiness to learn – or learning “muscle”?
• To what extent do you look for the learning in situations you find challenging or when faced with people you find difficult?
• How would you describe yourself as a learner?
• How does learning support you in making progress towards your aspirations?

What additional questions would you offer in relation to learning to learn?

When Jamie took on the leadership of a team of colleagues in her accounting firm, she was given a thorough briefing by her predecessor-in-role about each member of her team. She used this briefing to decide on her initial strategy for managing the team and members of the team.

She knew that her predecessor saw one member of the team (John) as a poor performer. He had described John as lazy and told Jamie how often he’d had to check that John had completed his work. Although she listened carefully to this diagnosis, Jamie made a note to be curious and to reach her own conclusions.

Initially, Jamie observed how meticulous John was in his work. His clients spoke highly of him and Jamie observed how he completed his work on time and to a high standard. She was increasingly mystified by her predecessor’s observations. About two months after she took on her leadership role, however, she had a letter from a client who had asked John to complete a piece of work. The client had not heard from John and he hadn’t received the help he’d asked for.

Jamie decided to share the letter with John and ask for his observations. As John talked, Jamie observed changes to his body language and wondered what they signified. She decided to ask him straight out. John told her that when he’d received the letter from the client he’d looked at his diary and realised he couldn’t do the work on time and meet his other client commitments. He’d used the team’s allocation system to ask for help and the work had been passed to another colleague. It was his understanding that the work was in someone else’s hands. At the same time, this wasn’t the first time he’d been hit with a surprise of this sort.

Jamie decided to look into the way the allocation system was working and discovered a political issue of which she’d been unaware. The person responsible for tracking the flow of work through the department and re-allocating work when necessary had made a number of errors over time. She learned that her predecessor had been aware of this and chosen to turn a blind eye. Jamie decided it was time to stop focussing on John and to start focusing on the wider context in which he was working.

Whilst Jamie’s approach looks straightforward on the surface, she did something that many people overlook – at times if not all the time – by remaining curious, inviting new information and adjusting her approach in the light of new information. The results of her efforts were a number of changes to a system which just wasn’t working.

Here are some questions to help you to identify the extent to which you are curious, inviting new information and adjusting your approach in the light of what you learn:

• How open are you to new information about the effectiveness of your approach, including feedback about others’ perceptions?
• In what ways do you proactively seek out new information?
• To what extent do you build in ways to get feedback as part of planning your approach?
• How willing are you to make adjustments to your approach in the light of new information?
• In what ways has your willingness to seek information and adjust your approach contributed to your effectiveness, happiness and well-being and over what period?

What additional questions would you offer in relation to making adjustments en route?

When Adam took on the headship of a failing school he was aware of the huge gap between the school’s current offering and his aspirations for the future. And even though he had been aware of the school’s Ofsted rating ahead of taking on the role, it seemed that the more he learned the more he realised just how much needed to be done if the school was to avoid closure.

Adam was aware of the temptation in a headship role to focus on the school’s most immediate challenges. Feedback from staff suggested that this may have been the approach of his predecessor and he knew this approach had been unsuccessful. He was also aware that the number of challenges which needed urgent attention had become overwhelming – and that many important issues had been left unattended until they, too, had become urgent.

Adam decided to take a different approach. Initially, he focused his attention on finding out as much as he could about the school and on clarifying his goals for the school. This gave him a clear way to prioritise, enabling him to identify and take next steps. Even at times of extreme challenge, Adam was able to ask himself “what shall I do next?” His vision and goals provided motivation and commitment whilst his focus on immediate next steps saved him from becoming overwhelmed.

Here are some questions to help you to identify the extent to which you are able to identify and take next steps with clear aims in mind:

• Where would you put yourself on a scale of nought to ten, where nought equals “mostly I do nothing because I don’t know what to do” and ten equals “even when my agenda is overwhelming I know where I’m heading and I’m able to identify next steps”?
• When the amount you have to do to reach your goals seems highly challenging, to what extent are you able to focus your attention in ways that energise you and move you forward?
• How often do you celebrate the steps you have taken (rather than “beating yourself up” when you think about the steps you have yet to take)?
• What key step do you want to take next in order to build, strengthen or maintain your “match fitness”?

What additional questions would you offer in relation to identifying and taking next steps?