4. Discovery session:
The discover session between Raghav and me is more of a very casual talk, as we know each other well. I used this session to set the expectation for Raghav as he should not be expecting for any “advice” like earlier times. He got this point and agreed for the same.
Raghav and I agreed for the frequency (once a week) and duration of each meeting (45 – 60 minutes) and also the mode of meeting (Face to Face).
5. First Session:
The first session started as planned. In all the sessions I followed my model “The GREAT Model” which I developed as part of this program (The complete reference for the tool description is given in the reference section available at the end of this document).
I started the session with greeting Raghav. I asked him to share some of the recent wins / things to celebrate. After that I assured him the confidentiality of the discussion.
After that I have asked Raghav is that some thing I can help him or is that something he wants to talk about? Below is the summary of key points of the discussion
- Raghav had issues in his work like not coming to office early, not taking any initiative, not working as planned, always have the habit of pushing the work to the last minute and finish it in a hurry
- He also shared his personal problem of not taking any new work items as he already has a set of items to do. This creates very uncomfortable feeling in his family and many time his wife forces him and keep reminding him for completing the work
- There are many other examples shared by Raghav which are again coming back to the above mentioned root causes.
Problem area to work on:
I asked Raghav to choose one of the items from the above list he mentioned to start work with. He picked up the issue of pushing everything till the last minute and doing it very late. His backlog of items is increasing and nothing is getting closed and this puts him in more pressure. In that discussion Raghav mentioned to me that he is struggling to figure out between the tasks which are Urgent and which are Important
Solution agreed to work on:
I have introduced based on the discussion the power tool “Urgent Vs Important” to him whether he likes to try that.
He liked the idea and agreed to try with that. So, following are the action items he put on himself:
- Get more understanding of the power tool Urgent Vs Important
- Try to group the pending tasks accordingly
- Start working on those based on the grouping
- Raghav also agreed for the follow up discussion on the next week coaching session
6. Second Session:
In the next week we had the second session. After the initial process followed I have asked Raghav what is that he wants to look at now. He started with the status update on the last week action items he had agreed to do.
Raghav explained that he is able to group the list of tasks to Urgent or Important. But he has just done the grouping and no actual work has done on those tasks. He also mentioned that he is concerned about this.
We had some good discussion and below are the summary of key points of the discussion:
- Raghav still not kept his promise on the action items. They are half done.
- With some more probing questions I found from his past experiences he realized that there is nothing rewarding or awarding for him to do things immediately. He never felt it is great to finish early.
- Once in his college days he travelled in a very uncomfortable position for more than 30 minutes to reach the college on time. But his professor didn’t appreciate this hard work from him. There are many people came late on that day. They are also not punished.
- Raghav mentioned that from that time he started pushing everything to the last minute and try to finish in a hurry. He shared he can still feel uncomfortable when thinking of that incident
Problem area to work on:
Raghav wanted to get away this incident and the kind of feel that made him not to work as planned. He believed that this attitude is with him for many years so maybe he is very used to this way of working. He mentioned that he might be so used to be a lazy person and he is very happy with that approach.
Solution agreed to work on:
I asked Raghav whether he comfortable to try the “emotional delayering” technique so that he can get away with that feeling he explained earlier. He agreed and after that exercise he mentioned he is very comfortable.
I have asked him to think of that experience again few times at home late that day or some other day to check whether he feels like earlier.
Following are the action items he put on himself:
- Try to complete the action items which he committed earlier
- Sit and try to think back the same incident and make a note of how he is feeling now about that.