APPLICATION 14
Identify a current situation or relationship you’d like to improve. Use the template below and the following steps to help align the right inputs with the results you desire.
1. Describe your desired output in the situation or relationship. You can’t chart a course to a destination if you don’t know where it is you want to go. Think of it like a GPS—the more exacting you can be with an address, the more specific it can be in prescribing the route to take.
I want my team to be energized and engaged about the projects we’re working on.
2. Describe your current reality. In keeping with the GPS metaphor, we need both a starting point and an ending point to accurately chart a course. Spending time to assess your current reality also helps you uncover potential inputs worth examining and possibly changing.
Team members come late to meetings and are anxious to leave, very few are enthusiastically volunteering for aspects of the projects, and several side meetings are taking place.
3. Carefully examine your current inputs. What things drive the current results you’re experiencing? Because inputs are not always intuitive, consider some of the following questions:
• What paradigms am I holding that might be limiting this person or situation?
• What am I saying or not saying that could be contributing to this situation?
• How would the people I work and live with describe my attitude toward them?
• What specific behaviors am I modeling (or not modeling)?
• Would I like me if I were the other person in the situation?
4. Try a new and more effective input. Seemingly complex problems can often be dramatically improved by finding the one or two inputs that matter.
5. Analyze the result. Everyone fails, but how we consider that failure can make all the difference. As the world-renowned leader and peaceful revolutionary Nelson Mandela said, “I never lose. I either win or I learn.” Be objective and thoughtful as you consider the results you’re getting, and accept that with each trial and error comes an opportunity to get better.
OLD INPUT |
OLD OUTPUT |
NEW INPUT |
NEW OUTPUT |