NOT IN A MILLION YEARS
“I could never work with him” she said. “Not in a million years”.
Coaches are tuned-in to spotting assumptions. I spotted this one.
It wasn’t hard, if I’m being honest. But hey, credit where it’s due. I could have missed it. I didn’t.
“Why’s that?” I asked. We’re good at questions as well…
“He never gives me credit for what I’ve done. He books meetings when I can’t possibly get to them. He by-passes me. It’s all politics with him”.
“What do you think is going on in his world?” I asked. “How much pressure is he under?” “How could you collaborate, both get credit, and deliver a greater good?”
I was really on a roll now, as you can tell.
What we’re dealing with here is what psychologists refer to as Self-Limiting Beliefs.
Self-limiting beliefs do what they say, really. Unusual for psychologists to make something so clear.
Very often such beliefs have an element of truth in them. Maybe he was being awkward. Maybe he wasn’t thinking clearly about the best time for a meeting.
But self-limiting beliefs take those observations, interpret them in certain ways, and turn them into black-and-white, 100% type statements.
Statements with words like “never”, “can’t” and “won’t” in them.
And at that point, they are limiting us. And we are the losers.
Such beliefs are everywhere in organisational life. Here’s a few more:
“My boss will never agree to that”
“People like me never get promoted around here”.
“This organisation is totally dependent on me”.
Coaching helps to unpack such statements. To challenge them. To work out strategies for testing them in the real world.
So that’s what we did, my client and I.
We - no, let’s be honest, she (my client) – came up with some possible alternative explanations for the irritating behaviour. And some ways she could perhaps turn the relationship around.
We spoke again recently.
“How’s it going with that guy?” I said. “The one you said you could never work with. Not in a million years”.
“Oh him. Much better”.
Aha.
She had turned it round in six weeks.
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