How Do I Help My Boss Without Doing Their Job For Them?

If you're an executive coach listening right now, I want to tell you about something I'm hosting

this December. It's called Evolve, and it's a four-day immersion for coaches who work with

executives and senior leaders. We're going to a beautiful place in Mexico, me, you, and a small group

of executive coaches, doing the kind of inner and outer work that actually changes how you show up

in your coaching practice. If that sounds like something you need, go to MurielWilkins.com slash

Evolve to learn more, that murielwilkins.com slash Evolve. Let's evolve together.

I'm executive coach Muriel Wilkins, and this is coaching real leaders. I've spent over 20 years working

with highly successful leaders who hit a bump in the road. My job is to help them get over that bump

so they can lead with a little more ease. I typically work with clients over the course of several

months, but on this show we have a one-time coaching meeting focusing on a specific leadership

challenge they're facing. Today I'm coaching someone we'll call Kate to protect her confidentiality.

She previously worked for a large company for many years, steadily moving up the ranks,

and even getting some unexpected exciting opportunities. I got the amazing opportunity to rebuild

part of the organization. To essentially rescope, rebuild it, give it a purpose, and

working really with the executive leaders of the company to assign a purpose like an added value

to the company. But even with that growth and the interesting challenges, she felt like it wasn't

enough. I was really haunted by the desire to grow even more, but I wasn't able to find a place to

grow in the company. And then after a while I came across this really amazing opportunity to

join another company. At least from the outside, it looked really amazing, and I thought, well,

let's give it a try, because not that I was desperate to find something else, but it came along,

and it gave me the perspective to essentially leverage the experience that I had from the

previous company and rebuild it into a different company. Since she started in that role though,

things haven't exactly turned out as she might have hoped, largely because of a strange relationship.

That's where we'll start today.

So when I first joined, I realized it's just an amazing company, and that is actually still what

I think today. I love the culture. It's a purpose-driven culture, caring type of culture.

So I found it incredible, in terms of purpose, in terms of placing the industry,

possibilities, even for the employees, talent development. So on so many levels, it is really an

amazing company. And I knew that I was joining a rather small team. I knew that there was a lot to

build as a matter of fact that was actually brought in to the exactly that.

And when you say build, can you share a little bit what that means? What are you building?

So structure, the way we operationalize a certain function in the company, but really structure

the whole work. So it starts from, okay, what is division, what is our strategy, and then it drives

from strategic objectives, basically everything. It also includes thinking about then roles,

responsibilities, just attracting cinema systematic way. They wanted to do it, but it wasn't there

at the time. So I started, you know, injecting my ideas, proposing my ideas. And there was no

follow-up on what I was proposing in a way. And it was like, okay, that's great. Can you put

it in a... Who were you proposing to? To my manager at the time, yes. Okay. And then you weren't

getting any follow-through or feedback on the ideas? No, no, she was saying, okay, just, you know,

send it over, and then we can discuss. And I remember that time there was like, I didn't hear

about it. And I thought, maybe it's just bad. I started doubting, I didn't actually dare to ask

her any feedback. And at some point, I thought, well, let me just ask and see what happened to that.

And then she was saying, oh, yeah, that was really good. It's just that now we have something else to

look at. Or yeah, it was good. And we will take it up again, maybe in the future. There was no follow-through.

And I kind of questioned, okay, what is really happening here? We weren't really making much

progress, at least in my view. And I try to have that conversation and say, you know, I'm not sure

how we should go ahead. And I don't know what you think about. I don't know if I should give my

feedback or if I should propose things to you. How do we work together? How can I contribute more?

So when I joined, I was like, okay, I can start doing things. And I was doing a stakeholder map.

And she said, a stakeholder map, that's fantastic, because I can give you advice on how you know,

how you could build your network in the company. And that is super important. So I started doing that.

And we were having our one-on-one and said, yeah, I mean, this is, you know, the executive leader

where we roll up into. Basically, this is our organization, right? So I would start from there.

And she said, but you'll never talk to her. I was shocked because in my previous company,

I had exposure to exactly leaders of that caliber. I had much more exposure. And as a matter of

fact, the type of the organization and the function of that organization in the company is very,

very similar. I mean, between the two, sure. And in the previous organization, I had much more

exposure to executives, which I think gives more power to the organization itself, to the function.

But also, it gave me a fantastic opportunity to grow, to talk about, you know, the big picture,

expand my vision in so many ways. When she said, but you're not going to talk to her, right?

Okay. Well, that's the reality check. Yeah. That is a reality check. Okay. Let me pause here

because I want to make sure I understand the full context. So you've been in the role brought in

in your mind to do what you've had success doing at a previous organization. You love the culture

of the new organization that you're in. But in terms of being able to execute on the role according

to what you think needs to be executed on, you're facing some obstacles. What are the obstacles?

I think it might be just working with her. Okay. Because she is responsible for our team. And I

am supposed to help her. I am the most senior in the team. You know, so we cannot make progress.

And at some point, I thought, well, you know, if I cannot make progress on building the organization

within her scope, I can at least build things for my own scope, which is of course more limited

compared to because she has a larger team. And so I thought, well, let me go ahead and maybe just

by showing some examples, you know, within my own scope, we can deploy if that's okay and if that's

something that works, we could deploy it across. And I started doing that. But then I realized

she wanted to be really super involved everywhere in what I was doing. I needed to bring her

onboard of everything I did. And that is super disempowering for me. It's just demotivating.

And I'm kind of asking my question, okay, help me understand what is really going on.

Do I have some kind of, you know, hidden blockers here? And I cannot really work with her. I feel

like a child, you know, that and I'm so senior. I'm just, I have basically done for job. The scope

that I had in the previous company is even larger than the scope that she has. So that's probably

also a problem because I am thinking basically all the time, you know, I can do your job actually.

Yeah. And what do you think she's thinking? I think she thinks the same, which is different than

I'm here to help you do your job, which is what you said you were brought into. That's right.

And so if you approach it from a place of, and we'll get into some of these, but when you're

sort of in the back of your mind thinking, I can do your job. How do you think that informs the way

that you have approached the role so far? Yeah. I have been taking about it. I mean, it could be

that the way I communicate is maybe I'm coming across as arrogant. Maybe I am, you know,

just laying down the law and say, look, I have done this many times. This is how it works.

I have been watching myself a lot, just trying to really refrain myself from doing that and from

having any kind of behavior. And I can share what I think I have done previously, but of course,

it's a different company. It's a different context. So you'll have to tailor it. I'm fully aware that

you can't just replicate. You just come in and replicate it. It doesn't work like that.

This is why I'm also very careful is say even maybe afraid of asking feedback because

I would say, well, maybe I'm coming across as too arrogant or I even actually tried to have

an open conversation with her. At some point, I said, you know, sometimes I'm just leaning back

and letting others speak first because I don't want to be always the first to say, hey,

here's how it would work. And actually, at that time, she said, no, no, no, no, as a matter of fact,

you shouldn't hold anything back. Please do help us. Everything that you have done is so

beautiful. And please do speak. And yeah, be always the first to speak. That's fantastic.

Just go ahead. In reality, though, thanks to not workout because I feel like she

with some very key stakeholders, she wants to be in charge. She wants to just show she is the

one that actually, you know, has done it. Okay. So I want to come back to this. You could do

the operating thought that you had, which is I could do this job, right? I could do her job.

And what it seems like you said you were brought in for, which is I'm here to help her do her job.

And so when you think about the difference between the two, and by the way, I don't see you in a room,

I'm not sure if you come off as arrogant or anything like we don't know, okay? But I think that there

is something here around the expectations of the role. And what you might be expecting from it versus

what she might be expecting from it. Let's assume that her expectation is Kate is here to help me

do my job, right? What difference does that make in what you think she expects from you?

And I'm not saying it's right or not right. I'm just saying if that were the case,

what difference do you think it makes in terms of what she expects from you?

Yeah, I think it's a good way to frame it because I think it makes sense then that she would ask me

to channel everything I'm doing to her and just, you know, bring her up to date and really

inform her on everything that I do. And maybe through this, she's thinking, okay,

I can then absorb and essentially make it, and I can help then the rest of the team to make it

more structural. And so I would say within that frame, I think it makes sense how she behaves.

And I don't know if that is the case, but from what you're describing and even the words that you

used, right? In terms of I was brought in, my role is to help her and yet I have this thought

of I could do it. Those are two different roles. One is about ownership and the other is about

support. And I'm not here to say again that one is better than the other or right or wrong,

or that even what she's doing in terms of, you know, I want to see every email and I'm the one

who needs to talk to these people. I'm not going to sit here and say, that's right or wrong.

What I know is that if she believes that you are here as support and you believe that you are

here to own something, there's a mismatch. I can see that. I can't say here is the narrative

around the mismatch. What I can say is there's a mismatch. And so when there's a mismatch, right?

She's not the one sitting in front of me. You are. You can sort of say, okay, so what do I do

with that? What do I want to do with that? We'll be right back after this.

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At the core of many frustrations at work is misaligned or unmet expectations.

That can be a misalignment between your goals and the current opportunities,

a misalignment between the company's strategy and where you think it should go,

or as in the case of Kate, a misalignment between what you think your role should be,

and how your boss use it. As I listen to Kate lay out the problem, I quickly noticed a disconnect,

a small but possibly important distinction between whether she was there to help her boss,

or there to do her boss's job. Kate initially framed her frustration at work as her boss holding

her back, saying one thing and doing another, essentially being protective over her own domain

at the organization. So the first thing to do was help Kate explore other possibilities,

and especially begin to think more about her boss's perspective.

Let me ask you, do you think that there's a way that you could, or have you try to confirm,

or better understand what she thinks she needs from this role?

Yeah, I think she made it very clear that there was a structure to be built a way for

everyone in the team to operationalize. She was very

articulated about, we need to build these strategic objectives,

think how we add value to the company, and from there, select the programs we need the

activities we need to work on, and from there figuring out KPI's, how to track progress,

communication strategy, all of that, and she was telling me, I need a help. I see you as

the senior, even that has done that in the past, and I see you as the one that really is going

to help me. But there is no single time that we have been discussing ideas. So I was thinking at

that time, I was thinking that we would work on this together. I was thinking she would co-build,

she would have ideas, she would bring, you know, her vision, her vision is of the politics that

basically plays, you know, in her environment and maybe at higher levels, that's what she

lives on, relationships. So she's really a relationship person. I know the value of relationships,

but I'm also really focused on the content. That's the one major difference between us.

What I hear is there is alignment on the what, meaning what it is that you were brought in

to work on, creating the structure. So there's alignment around the what.

What I'm also hearing is that potentially where there is misalignment is in the how.

How do I help you, right? You've used this word a lot. It sounds like she's even said,

I need you to help me. Yes. So what conversations, if any, have happened

around what effective help to her in building this thing is? That's a good question, actually.

I think we never had a conversation around this topic that you're pinpointing right now.

I mean, it's so crystal clear when you say there is alignment on the what, but now we

to tackle the how and how do we make that how effective we need a friend conversation.

Because in all these months, I realize that we have so many differences. I mean,

we have a completely different personality. We have a completely different view of what it means

to work in the company, our functioning in the corporate. We never really had a friend conversation

about how do we make the how now? Right. When we see the differences, it's easy to stay focused

on that. Rather than say, oh my gosh, even more reason to become crystal clear and create

the intersection and the commonalities, the alignment, right? Because in the reality,

it's okay for the two of you to be different. It doesn't matter. Let's focus on what matters.

What matters is that getting from the current state of where the organization is to the future state,

requires alignment on a few things. And as long as there's alignment or intersection on those

things, the rest of the difference is it's fine. It doesn't matter. What matters is, is there

intersection around this one very important through line? Okay. Usually where there's a breakdown,

it's usually around the what, where are we going, or the how, or both. And in your case, I think

it may be the how. So this is sort of, you know, I don't know if you ever saw that movie,

Jerry McGuire, I'm dating myself, but it was a Tom Cruise movie. And he says to the person,

he's like, help me help you. I think this is a help me help you moment, relative from you to your

manager. And so let me pause there. How does that land with you? I think it's spot on.

Actually, it makes me think that I have been trying a couple of times to have a conversation with her

on the fact that there was no progress. I didn't put it that way, but I wanted to have

her view on how things were progressing in general within the team, you know, with the organization

that she has responsibility for. There's always a lot of talking, but at the end, I don't think we

really came to, okay, how do we tackle it then? What do we do then? But it's just so difficult

to have a friend conversation with her. What makes it difficult? Because she doesn't really want to

hear anything that is slightly negative. I actually stopped already a long time ago to try to have,

you know, a very candid conversation. So let me ask you a question. What do you think when we're

guessing here? But what do you think makes her not want sort of resist hearing things that are

negative? If I were to offer you, right, let's say I offered you some water right now, and you said,

no, I don't want it. Why would you not want the water? Because I'm not thirsty. Because you're not

thirsty. And you're not thirsty, which means water is not going to be very what, helpful to you

right now. But maybe you're hungry, and maybe in the back of your mind, you're wishing,

I wish Muriel would offer me a cookie or something or something to eat, because what I really need

is something to eat, not something to drink. That would be helpful to me. And so I think we have

to be careful of making assumptions as to why somebody receives something or not. What I'm hearing

is potentially, right, keep going back to this word help. This would be a question. In what way,

and I don't know, in what way is framing the conversation from a, here's everything that we're

doing wrong, hopeful to her. And I'm not saying that we should never say, here's what's going wrong.

I'm just saying in this situation, what you're trying to do is be helpful to her, is that framing,

supporting the Kate is here to be hopeful to this person, or is it working against it?

Yeah, I think the latter. What's unclear to me, and I'm not sure if it's clear to you,

so this is a question is, what would be helpful to her from her perspective?

I think it would be helpful to just come with a solution and say, I'm going to drive this very

consistently across the team. In the back of my mind, I think all the time, this is actually your work.

I'm supposed to help you. I'm not supposed to do your work. So her definition of help might be

just do it. Just do it. And your definition of help might be, I'm going to give you all the

capabilities so that you can run. And maybe her definition is like, no, no, I don't want to run.

I need you to run. That's what would be helpful. But when you get to the end, let me be the one on the

podium, perhaps. And I don't know, maybe, but I think it's worth exploring more than how do I

found out what's playing around with that? How do you think you could find out given what you've

experienced so far or if you had a different boss, how would you find out? Many times she actually

told me, you know, this other leader always tells his reports, don't come to me with problems,

come to me with solutions. I just want to see solutions. And she told me that quite often, which

actually could hint at the fact that you might be right in this scenario, that she wants me to

help her in this terms to her means I am just driving this into the work. Yeah. And look, I don't

know if I'm right. It doesn't really matter if I'm right. I think the point here is you're trying

to be helpful to someone. You haven't even really committed to whether it's what you want to do or

not. We're going to get there without fully understanding what it is that you're signing up for.

What it is that's helpful to them, because being helpful to someone is based on what's helpful to

them, not what's helpful to you. You've got to understand it from their perspective. What is

helpful to them? That's such a deep inside. Yes. And I don't know what that is. Again, she's not

sitting here with us. Yeah. But what I sense is if you continue to look at it from the perspective of

what would be helpful to you, Kate, or what was helpful maybe in other contexts with other bosses,

you're going to sort of continue to be throwing things up at the wall with it potentially not

sticking. So the question really is what would be helpful to her from her perspective? And once

you know that, is that what you want to do? That's a whole separate thing. That's right. But we

got to figure out first, what is it before you decide that? Because if you decide that, you're doing

it without really knowing. So one way to figure it out is of course to talk to her, to really find out

how she thinks I should or could help her. I mean, I think we could pull back a little bit,

right? Based on the conversations you said you've had in the past, my sense is when you narrow it in

to the actual work, you know, the deliverables that you have, then it kind of gets mucked up in the

deliverables. I'll be honest with you, like if anybody asked me, Muriel, what's helpful to you? It

doesn't matter if we're talking about, you know, planning the weekend versus working on a presentation

for work or going on vacation. What is helpful to me is pretty consistent. Okay. Most people have themes

around what they consider helpful to them. What they see as like, this is always what's helpful to

me. This is always what makes me, you know, feel more confident or more secure in what's happening.

So I want to sort of imagine if you zoomed out a little bit away from the specific deliverables.

Okay. There's a couple of ways you can find that information. One is have a conversation with her,

which we could talk about how to do that. The other is you've been around her for a year. So what have

you picked up without narrative? Just like, huh, when I have done this, I find that she's accepting

of it. What did I do? Is there a pattern there? How do other people deal with her? And where is that

effective? What can I learn from that? What are some of the things that she has said or not said

that indicate to me that that's something that she really values in anyone who is being supportive of

her or who is helping her? So there's a bit of zooming out of what are those operating principles

and support of being hopeful to her. And then from there, how do I apply that to this work?

So I think we need to sort of pull it back a couple of layers and operate with what we do know

rather than what we don't know. And so what is it that you do know? Because again, I'm not saying that

the way she's going about doing things is best practices or like ideal manager. I'm not. I'm just

saying you've got to see the reality for what it is. What would it take from you to adapt to that

so that you're aligned with the role of being hopeful to her? So my question is you've approached

the conversation. It sounds like with her from a place of this is what happened. Here's what

doesn't work. Okay. What you have heard from her, it sounds like is bring solutions to me. Don't

bring me problems. Correct. So if you were to approach the help me help you conversation

from a here's the solution, not the problem. What could that sound like? That's a good question

because the only thing that comes to my mind right now is I just want to tell her that

you know, in my world helping her doesn't mean that I do the entire that I do her work,

that that's what comes to my mind but I know I assume I can't really tell her that but you're

you're resisting what you're assuming she's going to say. You know what I mean? Like your

resistance has already gone up because you're assuming that's what she actually thinks. We don't

know that's the problem right now. But I can't ask her that. I can't ask her that directly.

You can't ask her that directly so how could you go about it to try to confirm whether that's the

case or not? Yeah that's a good question. I mean I have to find out indirectly the best thing

would be to hear from others that she talked to but maybe that could be one way. Are there

others in your organization that you see who work effectively with her? Perhaps but I'm the

senior one, the most senior one. There are others in the team that might actually be working

effectively with her but it's not the same type of partnership. Right. So this is the thing right

you're the first person at this level of seniority that she has on the team. Yes. Okay. So in a sense

she is managing you the way she has managed everyone else. Oh yes. Okay. That informs us.

So you can look at that and I think you have a sense of like okay I see what that dynamic looks like.

It's not necessarily personal. It's more around the role she's not used to working with somebody

this senior. So the question becomes somebody who is at this level. How can they be helpful to her?

And what you're sensing is I could do what the more junior people are doing but I don't want to do

that nor do I think that that's what this role should be doing. Right. And you're hearing from her

I just want solutions. Right. I don't want problems. So in what way have you presented?

Here's how I'm going to execute. Here's the 10 things that how I'm going to support you. Here's

exactly what it looks like and then get a reaction from her as to whether that works or not.

So we talked about goals. We articulated my goals for the year and you know on that list

we also negotiated or agreed on okay some things that could help her at the entire team to really

build that organization. So some of these things are already really spelled out in the goals.

I remember the goals are the what? Yes. We're talking about the how. The how are things like

how are decisions made? That's brilliant. How are we keeping each other informed? Yeah that's

brilliant. How engaged is she when she says copy me on every email you're interpreting it as

oh she's in my business because she doesn't trust me or what not she's not empowering she doesn't

want to empower me. She might be like no it helps me it helps me keep on track of everything.

I don't know it could be one or the other but it's best to put that on the table to understand it

so that you know what you're dealing with you know if I said to you hey Kate like copy me on every

email not because there's anything wrong with you but more because it's the way that I can stay

on track with things or else I'm gonna forget and if I'm not on that email I'm gonna wake up in the

middle of the night wondering did I forget something or why not so could you do that because that

would be helpful to me. Yeah that will be different that would be different. The issue is she doesn't

have you know doesn't sound like she has a capacity or has been able to or has not thought about

articulating it in that way so she's not here I can't coach her on that but in what way could

you find out from her the specifics of the how how she likes to work which I actually think this

is about or a piece of it how she likes to work regardless of whether that's the way you like to

work or whether it's again best practice or not in what way could you find out what her preferences are

I could observe how she does things with others in the team how she works with maybe her peers

even that so we are at the more senior level I could come with a proposal and say hey we have

this what we have agreed on me doing this how about I work on that and then you know we agree

on the how so I I come with a proposal and I describe to her you know how we work on that

and then I would you know wait for her feedback and see whether that is what she likes or whether she

she perverses a different way yeah I mean look I think that is certainly one approach what it

sounds like is you're going to have to drive this if you want to try to get some level of alignment

here right and so being able to point out hey I feel like we are aligned on where we're going

and the goals and you can own it where I'm feeling some dissonance where I'm feeling like I'm not

necessarily sure to use her words I'm not necessarily sure if I'm being hopeful to you being

hopeful in the way that I approach this work the execution of it vis-a-vis you and so here's what I

think will be helpful to you based on what I've seen and what I've heard but could you tell me

yes or no you know and you can be detailed right I know you want me to come with solutions but not

so much when I'm still processing or pointing out the problems is that your preference and if so

what makes that your preference you know and you can think about it in terms of categories how

she likes to be communicated to what does she want to stay informed on how her decisions made

from her perspective what's her preference around how she handles conflict yeah what about

relationships outside of the media how does she like those managed right and understand those now

does that mean that you have to then say okay I can do it we have to get to that question that's

really really helpful because while you're talking I say yes that's right but that will cost me

a lot of time I'm probably now thinking I'm probably the one that just runs with things

and just focuses on on the what and you know just getting results I'm thinking yeah if I need to

bring her along you know it might be that the way she works it's very detailed but Kate this is

also why it's important to understand what's behind the ask but even assuming that she says because

that helps me and you know I'm just genuinely want to be up to date and say this helps me this

really helps me that that's okay but then I'm thinking look that will cost me a lot of time and

so forget about you know all the results but until you understand what it is that's actually

helpful to her and why write some context so let's say she comes back and says yeah see seeing me

is very helpful and then you say I'm happy to do it help me understand what it is that's helpful

about that to you oh well it keeps me from forgetting things that's how it's helpful for me

that then enables you to say oh okay well here's another way that I can make sure that you don't

forget about things why don't I give you a daily digest or a weekly update but until you understand

what the underlying need is that she's trying to solve for in terms of you helping her you're not

going to be able to address it in other ways that are helpful to you yep I understand

we'll be right back after this every business is asking the same question how do we make AI work

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free to you at net suite dot com slash muriel net suite dot com slash muriel by this point in the

conversation case has been able to clarify for herself a bit more why she feels frustrated by

the relationship she has with her boss offering someone a glass of water who isn't thirsty is a

helpful analogy the definition of what is helpful truly comes down to the individual so without

better understanding their needs it could be hard to deliver on these expectations once Kate has

reached clarity on where her boss really wants from her only then can she begin the next round of

reflection around whether that is a good fit for her only then can she really start thinking through

what she is and isn't willing to do it can be a bit of a process to understand what the non-negotiables

might be on either side of the table but it's a process worth going through so we move the

conversation next to looking ahead if Kate gets more clarity on what is helpful to her boss how would

she then go about making choices for herself it just makes me think about myself and

how I operate right so I'm not sure I'm the best then set up to actually helper you know I'm

somebody that again runs and brings results and really builds things being in charge but not

you know catering to somebody else's needs I need to reflect on that and you know what comes

to my mind is I'm actually pretty sure that she wants me to do all the work this is her work

I'm not gonna do her work because I'm not you know in that position but this thought really

kind of gets me stuck that tells me that there must be some hidden blocker why

what I not do that why would you not do what to do all the work for her it's just my perspective of

course let me reframe the question for you a little bit why would you I'm agnostic one way or the

other so I would ask you like in a world let's say you know two weeks from now we were to talk

and you're like Muriel you know what I'm gonna do it I understand what she needs I still think

it's a hypothesis that has to be validated or misvalidated around whether what she needs is for

you to do all the work so that's step number one and we're not gonna get we would need a follow-up

for you to go prove out that hypothesis okay so that's hypothesis number one but let's say it bears

out to be true and it is that you know to be helpful to my manager I have to pretty much do

everything okay and let's say upon reflection you come back to our coaching and you say this is

what it is and I have decided I am gonna do that and here's why enthusiastically here is my why

what would be your why what would be your reason why you would do it because the what would be

fun it would be fun but I cannot do it in splendid isolation I mean I need to do it together with

others and I need to do it with you know together with the team with my peers and before we move

into the butts right let's stick with the why you would follow that path I hear you your you

has crystal clear the why not why you wouldn't I want to hear about the wise and if there are any

right I think it will be fun it would be fun the goal excites you and motivates you

hmm yes why else would you do it her way which means you could be in this role I'm gonna throw

one out there you said hey I really love the culture of this organization yeah so it would

fulfill me to still be here right I love it here I might have to deal with this hurricane but I

love the warm weather of the island and the beach and the water so I'm gonna deal with the hurricanes

so that I can still have the warm weather and the right we could go through the list but I think

it's worth going through what would be your why because I do think it's not whether you should

or not I think the only reason that would drive you to do this because you brought it up you said

what is my blocker of why I wouldn't do this the blocker is that you haven't found a why

you haven't found a why to do it that's the blocker your focus just on the why not

is one better than the other no you just have to choose which one you want to hold which trade

off is of highest priority to you and I can't tell you that you're the one who has to live with that

so as long as your why is bigger than your why not that's what will move you in one direction

but if your why you shouldn't do it is bigger than the why that you should then you're gonna move

in that direction yeah so I think you need to just have clear on what the direction is that's

hypothesis number one and then move on to the second hypothesis which is around what are my

why's why I should and why I shouldn't it's a trade off right which ones are gonna lead me

I never thought of the why I always thought of the why not you're right and maybe in your

past you haven't had to because they so cleanly aligned there was no reason to think about it

what this is bringing up maybe the situation now is like oh my gosh no there's divergence here oh

okay I have to be and you know I have to be sort of clear about it it's magical when you don't

even have to think about it because it means it doesn't mean that the why's not there it's just

that your why's and your why not's like aligned very well you know that's great but there's a lot

of times in life in leadership where they're not aligned and so then we have to as you said be

reflective but I want you to be reflective eyes wide open yeah how does that make you feel around

your assessment of I must be blocked yeah I just realized that I never I never really thought of

why and I always thought of the why not and so that would be interesting by itself just to

understand okay what is it why was I you know drawn to the why not you know without thinking

about the why ever ever and yet when you ask the question why it was just like so immediate

for me to think well because it will be fun I didn't have even to think too long about it yeah

and that opens perspectives now the question is how to bring it to her how to operationalize this

yeah and verify the assumptions that as you say this is still an hypothesis right yeah and so

it's really like how then to find out and how to bring it to her yeah I mean I think you came up

with some ideas earlier that are tactical right and I would suggest that you follow through I think

one is I would recommend that you without expectation around how she might respond that you make the

implicit explicit which is my sense my experience as Kate were very aligned on the goals right where

we're going I want to make sure that the next year is as hopeful as possible to you right so it's

continuing in this theme of hopeful as possible I want to make sure that I'm doing that so here's

what I've observed around what's helpful to you but just tell me whether that is yes or no or

something different and then as you go through it it allows the follow question help me understand

what is it about that that's helpful to you we don't know where it's going to go right now because

you haven't taken that approach I can't guarantee it's going to work but it's different than the

approach that you've taken so there's a bit of you know what are the rules of engagement here

around how to manage her you know how to manage up to her given how she leads and manages which I

understand is not your preference nor what you're used to but once you can understand what those

rules of it you can't determine whether you want to engage with certain rules of engagement if you

don't understand what the rules are you're not making a choice then that's right then you can make

a choice if it's like oh my god this is like my worst nightmare of rules of engagement you can

then decide oh is the fun of the deliverable does that outweigh the lack of fun in these rules of

engagement I don't know could be but it's not always going to perfectly line up you know I do a

lot of things that like you know I'm training for a high rocks right now wow it's going to be a lot

of fun when I'm done but the trade off of the pain that I am dealing with in the training

but you know if I want that fun feeling of accomplishment at the end and then I have some

people I know who are like I'm good I don't need that fun like the pain outweighs it I'd rather not

do it and that's fine that's choice and that's what I want you to have here yeah that's really

powerful way to rethink about this whole situation so tell me where you are now versus where

you were at the beginning of our conversation wow yeah I feel lifted you just expanded my way

of looking at this and you know when I came into the call I was literally stuck in a very very

narrow place in my mind so now I can think of options I really don't feel as stuck as I was

in the beginning of the conversation what is the one thing that you're committing to as a next step

that you think will keep you moving forward from this more expanded perspective of looking at

the situation what do you commit to as a next step I think the first question is really to

verify the hypothesis of what does help mean to her and really trying to find out you know what

does it mean and is it really like what I'm thinking that yeah you just do my work and that's

that's what it means to me and let's find out that will be the first thing to tackle and once I found

out then then the next thing will be well if that is the case why would I do that or why would I not do

with that yeah okay so guess what Kate I don't think you're stuck anymore because you have a step

forward so whenever we can take a step forward we're not stuck we're moving we're moving okay yeah

do your little experiment to prove or misprove the hypothesis and then let let's know how it goes

okay let me know how it goes thank you so much yeah thank you when charting a path for success in

any role it can be just as much about understanding the personalities and goals of railing you

as it is about understanding the quote unquote work to be done the higher you go the more the work

is about understanding guiding motivating and adapting to people not just finishing projects or

hidden KPIs that involves work work around communication understanding what others want and need

and also being more specific about what you want and need differences will bubble to the surface

but the good news is those differences can be a source of strength when leveraged correctly

a clearly defined shared goal is a good starting place it won't always be easy and there will

always be trade-offs so it's important to remember sometimes we have to deal with the hurricanes

to get to those truly magical beach days that's it for today come back in two weeks for a new

coaching real leaders ask Muriel anything episode if you want me to coach you through an issue or

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share in their journeys I'm Muriel Wilkins until next time be well