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Coaching is about actualizing possibility.
The beginning of the semester has always been my favorite – there's so much hope that the plans developed over break will materialize. Everyone's caught up on reading and grading. No one feels guilt, shame, bitterness, resentment, or defensiveness – it's a clean slate, a moment of possibility.
Why bring this up at the end of July? Because with intention, that early hope and possibility can be prolonged through the whole year – and the time to act is now.
Hope and possibility are mental states: openness to new ideas, willingness to take risks, connection with others. As the semester wears on, judgment, decisions, deadlines, and feedback take over and shift us toward guarded, worried, defensive.
No organization can progress without judgment, decisions, and feedback. But similarly, no organization functions well when its members are guarded and defensive. Neuroscience and psychology tell us these two states reciprocally suppress each other – guardedness crowds out curiosity, and vice-versa. So if we can predict which tasks will trigger guardedness, we can build in moves that ameliorate it.
A few that work:
- Inviting people to articulate the future they're working toward
- Asking them to imagine who they'll be able to be in that future
- Providing inviolable time in meetings to connect
That first day was never really about the calendar. It was the absence of guilt, judgment, and behind-ness – and that absence isn't a September accident. It's still possible right now, before the semester's demands crowd it out. The chairs retreat, the first faculty meeting, opening orientation – these moments set the tone for everything that follows, depending on choices made now, while there's still room to make them.
This is the work LifeBound partners with institutions to do – helping leadership teams protect possibility long after the first day has passed.
To learn more or explore which option is right for you, visit www.lifebound.com.
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