5 Steps to create an Impact

In my new pivoted career as an Advisor, Consultant and Executive Coach, after 35 years of being a technology executive, I continue to learn while interacting with people and ideas which I never would have encountered in my past life. Previously for me, the concept of Growth happened to be an individual quest that was somewhat chaotic and circumstantial. However, I have learnt and applied a structured methodology that continues to create successful outcome.

The ADEPT methodology

The ADEPT methodology grew over the last couple of years, as we worked with executives and leaders in various fields. This methodology has five steps and there is no exact time what each step takes. The pattern is cyclic, and as you encounter problems and dilemmas you can apply this methodology to get to your goal. As people dive headlong into finding solutions, the ADEPT methodology encourages one to slow down. This methodology is influenced both by the Japanese process “Ringisho” which is basically decision making laid out in a clear format and the US/western concept of rapid-fire. Ringisho encourages measure thrice before cutting and rapid-fire is measure and fire. ADEPT falls somewhere in between and emotions are at the center of the process.

Step 1: The A in ADEPT - Assess

It is very important to assess both where you are and where you want to go, before creating strategies and implementing them. I am not suggesting analysis-paralysis, however, to fully understand the current situation and assess is an important step before deciding.

Assess can take many forms. There are formal assessment tools for individual growth – Hogan, DISC, various 360 and 180 methods, personality tools, predictive index, etc. A trained individual can de-brief you. It doesn’t matter what one uses, but it is an important step. Marcia Reynolds’ book Coach the person, not the problem highlights how any situation is based on a person’s understanding of how to approach the solution. A lot of quick fix advice without properly assessing “where we are” is an important step.

Step 2: The D in ADEPT: Decide

Once you have assessed where you are, it is important to identify “where you want to be.” While understanding one’s goals, edge, values and needs are important to the Assess part of the process, Decide helps tell you what to do and how to measure it. Once you decide you also begin to understand the gaps that exists to get to your goal. You don’t start executing yet and it is important to put step 1 - Assess and step 2 - Decide together before one starts on the growth journey.

The outcome of this step is a Dashboard - which usually has one of these three variants:

• The Personal dashboard, is for individual growth.
• The Leader dashboard is about leaders who manage teams to get to various outcomes.
• The Executive dashboard highlights where a company needs to be and the executive’s alignment and personal growth in the process.

The dashboard is a living document and can change as often as a day or as infrequent as in six months. This dashboard clearly outlines a single page view of what one needs to do. It is akin to a car dashboard – tells you whether you are going too slow or fast, whether your engine is too hot (burnout) or ok, how much fuel you have left, etc.

Step 3: The E in ADEPT: Emotions

Corporations state that there is no room for emotions in business. Research has proven, that all decisions, engagement of people and teams, and feelings are based on the Neuroscience of emotions. Our emotional brain – the amygdala - receives external stimulus which drive us. Positive stimulus is interpreted as a reward and negative stimulus translates to a danger or threat. This drives our “thinking” brain (the frontal cortex) to either engage or dis-engage with people or situations which drives our decisions, engagement and demonstration of feelings.

The importance and demonstration of emotions in varied environments is important to understand. Daniel Goleman – who coined the term Emotional Intelligence says “If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far”.

I frequently talk about this formula with my clients

SUCCESS = IQ + EQ

Where IQ is Intelligence quotient and EQ is emotional quotient. Someone may not have EQ and still become successful, however they might have a very high IQ to succeed. For mere mortals like us, we need both of these to succeed. All our training is focused on IQ and EQ suffers.

Step 4: The P in ADEPT: Perform

We all obsess on what, how, when and where to perform. Everyone’s persistent challenge always is “how to increase self and/or team performance?” One continues to perform but can plateau. The mantra for more than a decade has been is “do more with less”. How does one deliver more with lessor resources? Most execution related questions arise at this step in the process. Going through first three steps in the ADEPT methodology makes one better equipped to know how to proceed - what to do, how to do it, and measure one’s performance regularly (not just once a year during appraisals).

Step 5: The T in ADEPT: Teams

We can’t create an impact alone by our own performance. One or more of the following is mostly true:

• We manage a team
• We are a part of a team
• We work with others outside our team

In all these cases teaming and teams are involved.

Managing a team can sometimes be very challenging. Understanding other individuals involves awareness of others or social awareness – as Goleman calls it. When we are managing a team, we experience many challenges for the outcome we need. This involves aligning the team to a common goal, understanding individual aspirations to keep them motivated, managing team dynamics and emotions, and creating a cohesive unit. How are you as a leader in doing this?

Being part of a team has its own challenges. How and what you agreed with your team members or peers? What is your relationship with your leader and others on the team, and them with each other? Is everyone aligned to the purpose that the team needs to achieve? What is the relationship of your team with other teams? How does your team outcome relate and align with corporate goals?

Working with other teams inside and outside your organization poses questions like how you can influence others to align with your priorities?

Comfort, Fear, Learning and Growth

The ADEPT method creates impact within and outside the organization whether we work as an individual or a leader. ADEPT also helps evaluate whether you are in your comfort zone and execute everything with ease, fear zone which exposes behaviors, habits and perceptions, learning zone that helps one identify and master new tools, skills and techniques and finally growth zone. Just as you settle into your growth zone – and feel that you are comfortable, new problems and challenges come your way and starts the cycle all over again.

We have experienced that following the structured ADEPT methodology helps our clients to solve challenges, problems, and dilemmas that they face daily in the workplace.