by Richard Boston (UK)
Most coaching clients are facing increasing amounts of change, complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity. What if there was a simple but highly effective way to help us all – clients and coaches alike – to ‘upgrade’ our capacity to deal with all that complexity?
Have you ever had a sense that some of the people you work with seem to be at a different stage in their development than others? Perhaps they are quicker to find patterns and carve a path through the complexity, or more able to step back and see situations from a different perspective, or more willing to question their thinking, their values and even their own identity.
In Upgrade, Karen Ellis and I look at those differences in terms of four mental capacities that we all rely on to deal with complex, fast-moving environments:
| 1. Sense-making | to find patterns and clarity in the mass of complex, interconnected data that assail us every day |
| 2. Perspective-shifting | to ‘zoom out’ to see things from different points of view |
| 3. Self-relating | to understand and manage ourselves, and drive our own development |
| 4. Opposable Thinking | to notice, understand and work with opposing ideas, positions or values |
All of us have all four of these capacities. We just vary in our ability to use them. In Upgrade, Karen and I differentiate between a number of different levels in each capacity. Each is a massive step-change in how people think about themselves, the world, and everyone and everything in it. Each ‘upgrade’ from one level to the next makes us better at handling ‘VUCA’* situations; better at handling transitions into bigger, more complex jobs. When you and I come across clients who are struggling, stuck in a rut, plateauing in their careers, or repeating counter-productive behaviours time and time again, they are almost certainly in need of an upgrade.
