A Coaching Model By Rickard Lindqvist, Business Coach, SWITZERLAND
The Next Step Process
This process is targeted to help you as a business leader and your teams get things done faster, less complicated, and more fun.
Very often strategies, business plans, visions, missions, development plans, etc are too blurry and extensive and they don’t serve the purpose of developing the business, individuals, or the organization. A lot of time and money are spent to produce these documents and rather soon they are forgotten and not used. Sometimes they are even outdated before they are published.
The intention is often to reach the so-called next level. But unclear, long-term activity plans and goals don’t ignite action to start moving forward and the risk is high that the next level is just a hope or a dream to be reached sometime in the future. We get confused and start to question what we are doing, and we start yet another analyzing project trying to understand what the problem is. This happens because we don’t accept and appreciate where and what we are and because we don’t focus on the “here-and-now” and the next thing to do.
I have led businesses in many countries, cultures, and industries for many years and I have tried lots of approaches, models, and tools. But I always land on the conclusion that focusing on the next step and keeping it simple is the best way. My purpose is to help you find, do, and achieve your next steps through this process where the coaching is supported by my extensive leadership and business development experiences and insights.
The Next Step Process Coaching Model
The Process
The Next Step Process is focused on coming to action fast. Standing still is the worst status mode and nothing good will come out of that. Movement is needed to create energy. Standing still creates no energy and in the worst case, it will drain energy. Therefore, we want to come in a movement mode fast, (“as fast as possible” is not enough). To do this we focus on the next step only and we want to trigger a movement in an exciting way, without looking back and embracing the fact that there is no final goal. The process is endless with “aim-act-achieve” loops and the goal is to keep on developing with joy.
We use “simplify” as our guiding star in all our work and communication. Everything can be made simpler, if not, something is probably wrong, and the purpose is to shift the focus and the perspective from complicated to simplified. There are plenty of useful tools to help us to structure our work and thinking process. Where they contribute in a good way, we use them. But we focus on making it simple and what suits you.
Aim
When we aim, we don’t want to stay in the past and we don’t want to spend too much time trying to understand why we are where we are. It is though important that we understand what we want to change, reach, and the benefits. We therefore need to spend some time on discussion, analysis, reflection, and exploration rather shorter than too long. More often than we think, we already know what to do if we are allowed to just focus on the next thing without getting stuck in past decisions and considerations. We can’t change the past and we are not trying to reach the so-called next level with one big step. (All major successes and improvements are the sum of many small steps). We don’t look for the perfect step and even if we are not fully sure about the direction it is still better to take a step instead of standing still. We just want to let go and move on, and we will have indefinite chances to take new next steps since the process is endless. In the worst case, we have at least learned something for the next “next step”.
Act
When we take the next step, we act (create energy) and something happens. We want to focus more on opportunities than on problems. Focusing on problems blocks our minds and slows down the process. However, if something needs to be fixed, we see this as an opportunity since by solving the “problem” we actually improve something. The actions are easy to set since we only focus on the next step, we don’t look for the perfect step, and we know that there are many more steps to come where we can revise and adjust. Thinking too long “down the road” will only limit us and we will spend unnecessary time on things that might happen, instead of focusing on what is important now. The actions shall be clear, easy to do, and done fast. Otherwise, the risk is high it won’t happen, we will be standing still and instead of enjoying energy, we will experience frustration. There are many ways and tools to follow the progress of actions, but we favor using the simplest way; “what, who, when”. (Sometimes the follow-up system gets too much attention and hampers the focus on the actions).
Achieve
We always achieve. The step is clear and short in time and therefore the chance is high that we will reach what we aim for, but if not, we have always achieved something. We moved, we at least created energy, and we always learned or experienced something, which we take with us moving forward into the next step. We can’t change the past and reflection is focused on what we have learned and can be used for the next step. We don’t regret the previous steps. All steps are good, we are where we are, and we can never know where another step would have led us. Even if it “went wrong”, we have gained experience and we know what not to do as a next step. Therefore, we always celebrate the completion of the step, appreciate the new status, and with the new learnings we aim for another next step, over and over again.
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