Recently I was having a conversation with a client about ‘enough’ and what it would look like in his working life as a newly-appointed leader in an organisation undergoing a wholesale restructure. This is a tough ask in an environment where it feels as if people are taking credit for your work and point scoring abounds.
And yet this person’s ability to make good leadership decisions
and maintain a healthy family life depends, in part, on opting out of the assumption that there is always ‘more’ or ‘better’.
Sometimes the work of the coaching relationship is to develop the ability to discern and act on what is ‘enough’ in a changing context. I am always aware of coaching’s potential to feed the modernist ideal of limitless self actualisation. Fritz Lang’s Moloch Machine* comes to mind. After all, the drive for personal development is what brings us more clients :). Discovering and anchoring to what is more important than efficiency and optimisation is the beginning of the journey.
*Fritz Lang’s 1927 film ‘Metropolis’