The other day, during one of my son’s two year old tantrums I told him he was not being a good boy. The next thing he said made my heart hurt and my confidence as a parent sink. He softened his voice and pleadingly says through his tears, “mommy, I be good boy, now.” Wow, that stopped me in my tracks. I realized rather than being curious about the tantrum and what he might be working through, I passed judgment on him. In doing so, he started pleading for my attention. Ouch!
This experience reminded me of discussions that often come up during my coaching sessions. At some point, the conversation turns to a discussion about “good” and “bad” performance for that particular individual. The phrase “that wasn’t good” comes up a lot. I noticed during those conversations that so much time and energy was spent thinking about why a particular outcome “wasn’t good” that little energy was spent doing something to change it. They get stuck on performing badly.
I encourage folks to look at their performance in terms of results sans judgment. That is, did they get the results they wanted? Did that interaction with your difficult employee work or not work? By looking at results we take away the shame, blame or disappointment one may feel when they didn’t do a good job. It takes away the need to rationalize one’s performance and opens the door to look at how to get the desired results.
When we notice that our performance simply didn’t work we are able to forget about the judgment and reexamine desired results. It gives us an opportunity to get really clear on what we want.
What I wanted from my example above was for my son to work through his emotions (what I called a tantrum) and feel safe enough with me to do so. Instead, the result was a little boy who was worried about pleasing his mother. I will never again tell my boy that he isn’t being good. I will honor his emotions and be with him to help him work through those two year old emotions – even if it is right in the middle of a crowded grocery store.
When my performance as a parent isn’t perfect, I used to call it a “bad mommy moment.” Now I call it a “mommy moment”, one that simply didn’t work.
What have you done lately in your work-life or parenting journey that didn’t work?
What was the result you wanted?
What result did you get?
Do you need to get clear on the results you really want?
Advance The Scene 