Coach Talk: What do you want?

Posted by: Bob Craig

Psychologist Abraham Maslow was best known for his Hierarchy of Needs, you know the one that says before anything else can happen, we have to the basics of food, water, and safety which are at the bottom of the chart. If those needs are not being met, then nothing else happens. The top of that hierarchy is “self-actualization” where we problem solve, create, and accept facts among other things. The important part, says Maslow, is if you want to help another human being, you always put your attention on what it is they can do to improve rather than on what is wrong. So you don’t talk about what’s wrong, what ought to be, or what is missing unless you want more of that behavior to continue. You instead put your attention on what you want them to shift, what you want them to do, how you want them to behave.  I know, I know…. Even as a parent we spend a lot more time in ‘don’t do this’ than we do in what we really want them to do. And unfortunately we carry that same behavior into leading people: we spend way too much time telling them what we don’t want rather than focusing on what you do want. If you got really serious, the list of don’t is a waste of time and really works against what you want. First, you can catch yourself in “Don’t Mode” and then move to “Do Mode”. For openers, that list is much shorter!