Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Move!

One of the most impatiently self-confident consultants you’ll ever meet is Alan Weiss.  He’s famous for barking at his mentee clients, “Eighty percent and go!”  In other words, don’t dink around till you have perfection, which conveniently continues to elude you and lets you wallow in inaction.  Get most of the prep work done and launch, is Alan's message.

(As an aside, he’s incorrect if you try to apply this to a project you’re doing for a demanding client, or if you work for a perfectionist, or if the tolerance for error is zilch.  Then you have to put in the time and sweat to get it absolutely right.  You won’t be forgiven for less.  Otherwise, Alan is absolutely right.)

Move! is particularly true regarding your NEXT.  You can develop an Ideas list in about a minute:  Call this person.  Research an accounting degree.  Ask the pastor about volunteering.  Sign up for a workshop.  Talk to your wife about starting a business. 

It can take forever to get you off your duff and into action, however.  Whatever is the locus of your current unhappiness, non-Move! is at least the devil you know.  Move! is the devil you don’t and the risk you fear.  Ideas are the scary beginning for  you; they can be dead-ends.  Begin anyway.

The point of Move! is to JUST GET YOU MOVING, which has a magic of its own and often sparks other ideas and movement.  Move! also lets you:

* cross things off your list. 
* test your hypotheses about what you want. 
* get you to another contact, another idea. 
* help you know you’re truly serious about finding whatever's NEXT for you. 

You can learn some disappointing things.  The online college brochure makes you tired; you don’t want another degree.  You talk to your wife and she apparently married you for better or worse but not lunch-and-then-some!  She likes you out of the house.  These outcomes are simply data that tell you:

* I didn’t want that. 
* I’m not interested in starting over.
* This might be a fun hobby, but not a career.
* I made a new friend!
* Wow, that gives me a great idea.
* Back to the drawing board
* Hmm, this might be worth pursuing.  Who can I call to learn more?

That’s what you’re really looking for, the path to forward movement in this quest.  What new ideas did you get?  What helpful contact have you unearthed?  What might be an even more interesting combination of all your wants?  This is a winnowing, narrowing, learning process.  One client told me he didn’t know how to think outside the box.  What he didn’t recognize, in the impressive work he was doing, was that he had LEAPT out of it!  You, like he, will be exploring new territory.

Move! is a testament to your determination.  To paraphrase a saying about selling:  Nothin’ happens till somebody Moves!  Git.

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