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Have you ever caught yourself pushing through an activity, determined to do whatever it takes to be able to tick off your physical or mental TO DO list? Have you ever started your day planning to do what you have been avoiding for a long time, finding yourself having done something else by the end of the day? It happens to me all the time, and it was not until I learned about the Concept of Play by MCC Dave Buck back in 2010, that I fully understood how I could approach things differently and not only grow myself, but also support my clients in doing so. In short, the Concept of Play includes the definition of any challenge as a Game. It could be a business game, a career game, a health game, a relationship game or any other area where you want to accomplish results still to be recognized a such. In this Game, you assume the role as the Player. And as a Player, You are defining your objectives, your actions, your resources, your challenges and the skills you need to develop. As a Player, you will learn from your progress, your successes, your areas of improvement and you do this by involving other people. The Game starts now, not at any undecided point in the future, and you play until the Game is over. When the Game is over, you learn from your results and then you set up a new Game…
Sometimes I meet friends and clients who are very clear on what support they need for their Games and are able to mobilize their various environments to support their Game objectives. It happens that their Game even gets bigger because of the input and inspiration they get when involving others. More frequently though, people seem to be careful and reluctant in asking for support and sharing their ambitions with others as part of their belief system. So, how can the Concept of Play help?
When playing instead of pushing through, you want to improve, you want to become better at what you do, you want to go that extra mile and you want to experiment instead of just getting it done. You might even find it fun as you get expected and unexpected results along the way! You find it valuable to document your learning, and you want to open up to other ideas to see if your game can get even bigger. And, not at least, you may want to share your findings and insights with people around you. Suddenly you find yourself inspiring others to assume the role as a Player as well.
You may question the Concept of Play for many reasons. How likely is it that adults will see themselves as Players and define their challenges as Games? It sounds interesting, but may also be seen as very time consuming and difficult to put on top of everything that needs to happen on a daily basis. And, why should anyone else be interested in what my Game is? There are probably plenty of individual answers to these questions, but after having attended extensive coach training based on the Concept of Play as of 2010, I can refer to my personal experience as well as the feedback from my co-Players:
Playing is fun, but as adults, we need to get reminded of the reasons why it beats Doing. It is unfamiliar to describe a personal or a professional challenge as a Game, but when done, the focus is tremendous and the documentation of the Game strengthens the learning taking place. The Game becomes part of your every day life if you are playing big and involving others. I remain positively surprised by how often and warmly people around me want to support me in my Games. The main challenge seems to be my own ability in being bold on what I need and why.
Introducing the Professional Potential Gazette and launching YourVirtualArena were among the results from a Game I played earlier this year, the Global Reach Game, allowing me to interact with people no matter where they are located in the world. Are you ready to assume the role as a Player? If so, which Game are you up for?
If you found this topic interesting, stay tuned for the upcoming professional games on LifeVille, a web-based platform for people who want to challenge themselves as Players and play the real games of their lives supported by others. During 2011, I hosted 4 games supporting professionals looking to stand out and benefit from LinkedIn. Soon, there might be a new social media enabling game available in an arena near you…
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When did you last declare your professional ambition loudly to someone else? Or to yourself? Is it a secret well kept, only available during job interviews or performance reviews?
Or is it a topic shared only with friends when you discuss missed opportunities?
Looking back on my own experiences as an employee and manager, that was exactly what it looked like for me.
When I started my own business, I knew that I needed to become bolder in sharing my professional ambition with others. It took me a long time to feel confident in doing so. Why?
First of all, I was afraid. I was afraid of how others, both previous colleagues as well as new colleagues, would perceive me if I shared my ambition. Second, I was pending formal pieces of evidence, such as certifications and acknowledgement from role models, to feel more confident in involving others in my plan.
Finally, I was afraid of failure. How would I handle people around me, family, friends and colleagues, if I didn’t succeed in getting the results I had shared with them?
It was only after involving others in my plans, sharing vision boards and getting insights on how other professionals really perceived me, that I got more confident in sharing my ambition more openly. In fact, today it is a pre-requisite for attracting the right business opportunities.
Is there anything stopping you from sharing your ambitions, in real life and in social media, more fully? Maybe you are in a position to list your own top 3 reasons why your professional ambition is vague or totally missing on your daily schedule. If so, you are in a great place for professional expansion.
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First of all, let me start with the end: “…when the professional opportunity appears”. After supporting more than 100 coaching clients over the last 2 years, this is something which often requires further investigation.
“What do you mean, I never get any opportunities”, or “There is typically someone else who gets the opportunity”, or “I don’t know what to do to become visible to opportunities” are all perceptions I meet over and over again.
Then we explore some of the root causes for the perceptions. Maybe we are waiting for other people to step forward and ask us to take action, or maybe we believe there is a formal process or a code of unwritten rules that we don’t understand in order to become eligible for those making the decisions.
These patterns are common when analyzing both internal as well as external professional opportunities.
Sometimes, the professional opportunities are not even appearing to us because we don’t know how to recognize them. What is that you want more of in your professional life? And what do want less of? By looking more into the job content and degree of challenge, it becomes easier to broaden the “smorgasbord” of professional opportunities and get a glimpse of alternatives in totally different roles and industries.
The challenge and risk then mainly lie within 2 areas: How well you position yourself towards the broader selection of opportunities and how you manage expectations of yourself as well as expectations by others. In order to make progress, you need to become highly conscious about which type of opportunities you want to attract, you need a strategy to manage expectations and maybe learn some skills on how to position yourself where your stakeholders hang out.
Today’s social media tools enable us to listen to the market and communicate with colleagues, potential employers, customers and business partners in a new way, and this gives you a chance to tell your story, demonstrate your ambition and build your network effectively for long term relationships. And it gives you something else as well: An opportunity to start attracting professional opportunities which may not even exist yet!
So, are you ready to take on some risk and start identifying what you want more of and less of in your professional life?
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