Posted on August 26, 2009 - by Jus

105 | Creating Action

I have too much action in my life right now.  I am looking at all the balls I am trying to keep in the air and trying to work out how to prioritise, create structures and coordinate all the actions that I have going on in my head so that I can systematically get through them and closer to my goals.  I feel like an action figure without all my limbs right now.

I am not really someone who needs to create action – I think sometimes I need to limit it.  I am working through how best to create some structures to help me do that, along with my coach who has been really helpful at helping me to uncover why I am “never satisfied’ and even when I complete a bunch of really great actions – I am still only focusing on what is left to do, not celebrating what I have achieved already.

Which brings me to tonight’s lesson – part two of Creating Action.

Reflecting on this has been interesting, because so much of what goes on in the world is about creating actions.  If I want my child to clean his room – the quick way to do that is to tell him to do it, effectively giving him no choice or context (the why) in order to illicit the action I desire from him.  Then at the other end of the scale, in my day job as a marketer, we spend the better part of the day discussing how to create the very best context possible – through experience and storytelling – to illicit an action from an audience… that could be anything from buying, subscribing, logging on, voting, advocating or any number of other ‘desirable’ engagements marketers and brands seek every day.

But even in that last example, there is no success in just creating the context, filling the audience to the brim with all the benefits to them, the promises of the outcomes they seek… without pointing them in the right direction – towards the action you hope they will take.

Whether it’s a ‘buy now’ button on a webpage, or a form to fill in to hear more from that brand, or a URL on a piece of merchandise that you can take away to look up later, or giving you the tools to share that experience with your friends… illiciting action needs to be somewhat directional.

So how do you find the balance as a coach – the theory of a coach is that the client comes up with their own actions, right?  Most people with a brain in their head can tell you the most logical, or shortest, or most effective way to get from A to B.  Logically outlining the actions to get from where you are now, to where you want to be should be relatively simple.

But we are humans.  And therefore complex.  The actions that are valuable to one person are not valuable to another.  Which is why I believe a coach’s role in creating action with their clients is to uncover the CONTEXT – the values of that person, their strengths (and their weaknesses) and what they may actually need to take away from their life in order to pave the way for these new actions and the big goal.

This made me think about my son and all the other parents with children who try every way they can think of to get their children to take the actions that are right for them… eat more vegetables, do their homework, play outside instead of watching TV….  Perhaps there is value in taking the time (and let’s face it, it takes time) to help that child to uncover their own context.  What kind of person do they want to be?  Fit and healthy?  Smart and capable?  Let them identify what values they hold for themselves, and identify their own strengths and weaknesses.  Then they are in a position to commit to the actions they need to take to be that person.  They want to be fit and healthy?  Then they commit to eating well and staying active – if one of those is a weakness they have identified, then maybe they will ask for their parent’s help to keep them on track… meaning they are welcoming the ‘reminders’ (aka nagging) as a support to help them be what they want to be.

Hmmmm.  Something I am going to try out on my son this weekend.  I am sure there is an age threshold for this theory, but I would be interested in seeing whether this is a method of motivating kids into action without use of bribery, rewards or oodles of positive reinforcement.

What do you think?

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1. 102 | Commitments and Action
2. 106 | Trial Sessions