Am working on building a tribe to work on a brave and different project that looks at business and leadership through the lens of beauty.
Thanks to Susan Aktemel for posting this on Twitter the other day. I saw Susan speak at the Entrepreneurial Summit at Gleneagles this past April and her passion and purpose for business with purpose was inspiring!
The diagramme also gives me an opportunity here to share a learning.
My most commonly used coaching device is to have clients distil their focus to one word or short phrase that is the source, the driver of everything. I call this setting a CONTEXT
As an example, I use this in each new client relationship. By setting a context for our work together, I have a lens through which to view any conversation on any topic.
Some common examples around being a sounding boards to leaders could be:
- Impact
- Influence
- Engagement
- Elevate
- Strategic
- Growth
- Confidence
- Belief
In Susan’s example, one context she uses is “People I most enjoy working with”.
What you can then notice about the Venn diagramme is that to have those three themes gives definition, richness, meaning to that context.
There are so many “meaningless business words” and my bullet point list has several of them in there (eg Strategic, Growth, Elevate), so the second part of my work with clients as their coach and sounding board is to have them choose three themes or Focal Points that both give meaning to their chosen Context as well as literally give them focus on what they will do to achieve the outcome the context directs them to.
So, that is an introduction to the idea of Context. It is such a rich topic I could write countless articles about it, but suffice to say that I cannot possibly emphasise enough how powerful context is as a tool for leadership, business, life. I use it every day in multiple ways.
If you’d like to talk more about context, always open for a coffee or walking meeting, either in real life or a virtual one!
What’s your context?