You’ve changed, yet they can’t see it.
I feel for you. What’s going on!?
You took the feedback on the chin in the last performance cycle.
You made a list.
You looked for strategies to overcome, embody and elevated yourself.
You feel different.
You are ready to declare success.
And then...the boss doesn’t see it. In fact, they just repeat the exact same feedback as last year.
Hold on a second, you scream internally, what’s going on!?
Coaching fact…
If you're not proactively engaging your stakeholders in your inner work and transformation, it may take them twice as long to notice the changes you’re modelling
Here’s why.
Enter RAS – the Reticular Activating System. It’s a part of the brain responsible for pattern recognition. In milliseconds, it filters information, makes subconscious decisions about what we are observing, and ‘helps’ us form judgements about reality.
You know that feeling when you've been dreaming about a red car or a stylish handbag? After months of agony debating the price, you finally buy it. You feel so special - until you leave the shop and suddenly see the exact same item everywhere. Seriously. Everywhere.
It's not that more of them suddenly exist. It's that your brain - via the RAS - has been prompted, i.e. programmed, to notice what it’s been told to notice.
The same is true of your behaviour and how it’s perceived by your stakeholders. If, when you are changing your habits, you also seed that change into your stakeholders’ RAS, they will start seeing the new patterns of your behaviour, your communication style, even your smile.
That is why Marshall Goldsmith popularised Stakeholder-Centered Coaching and why, in John Mattone‘s programs leaders actively share their development plans with their teams.
My message? Get those around you on board with your transformation and you won’t just be seen as ‘changed’ or ready for promotion – you'll also inspire others to step into vulnerability and authenticity too.
Here’s to enrolling your, environment in your transformation.
And yes - google Reticular Activation System too. Pretty cool piece of kit we’ve got in our neocortex, eh?