Many of you know that I base much of my coaching on the foundational law of human performance, and human behavior, that ‘our thinking drives our behavior which determines our results – the conditions, circumstances and outcomes in our lives…(therefore, to change our results we must change our thinking).’ This is often a new concept for people and they want to get a better understanding of how it works. I thought I’d share one of the frameworks I use with my coaching clients, here, in case it is helpful for you.
The ‘Thinking for Success’ Hierarchy:
The levels of the hierarchy build upon each other. In other words, we all start at the bottom and move up the levels, but we can’t forget about the lower levels. And moving up the levels tends to dramatically improve our performance as we climb. So here’s the framework (from lowest to highest).
- Duty – At this stage we understand what’s being asked of us – we know what our ‘job’ is. That doesn’t mean that we accept it and care about putting any work into it, but we know what we’re supposed to do. This is a rational level of understanding.
- Responsibility – At this stage we accept responsibility for our job. This is an emotional commitment. We accept the work as ‘ours’, and to some degree understand that our work represents who we are.
- Effort – At this stage we are willing to put in the work to be successful in our work. We haven’t yet made the commitment that we should be judged by our results, only by our effort. Here we ‘work hard’ and ‘do what we can’. People at this level tend to tell us what they did (the activities, the amount of time and effort they put in), not what they produced or accomplished.
- Results-oriented – At this level, for the first time, we accept that just ‘putting in the effort’ isn’t enough. We know we aren’t just paid to ‘show up and put in the time’, rather we’re paid to ‘get things done’. Here we don’t focus on the number of hours, or amount of effort, we put in. Instead we expect results from ourselves. If we aren’t getting results we, again for the first time, are willing to make changes and adjust how we’re doing what we’re doing. (What’s interesting is if you read many profiles on sites like LinkedIn, it looks like 95% of people are ‘results-oriented’. Of course, many people simply see this phrase on other people’s profiles and decide to use it themselves. Others seem to believe this is the ‘top’ of the hierarchy – that you can’t get any better than that.)
- Goal-oriented – This is a step above results-oriented. Here we are willing to be responsible for getting at least the ‘target’ amount of results. (At the results-oriented level, as long as we’re getting ‘some’ results, we aren’t worried about hitting the target.) Here we understand, and accept, that others are depending upon us hitting our goal, so the goal is our target…the bar against which we judge ourselves.
- Growth-oriented – This is the top. Being growth-oriented, we’re beyond just hitting a/the goal. We want to grow and ‘become the type of person who naturally and consistently hits their goals simply as part of who they are.’ We don’t want to just achieve, we want to get better, we want to ‘become…’.
Having a growth-orientation overcomes many of the challenges of the prior levels. For example, goal-orientation requires we’re best effort to achieve our goals (when set appropriately). This means we have to be at your best every time or we’ll ‘fail’ to hit our goal. Also, only when we hit our goal do we feel like a ‘success’. And we will plateau in our performance, unless we quickly set a new goal.
However, having a growth-orientation means that each time we attempt something we have the opportunity to succeed or the opportunity to learn/grow. (We do need to take time to reflect and determine what worked, what didn’t, and what we need to change.) This becomes a ‘win/win.’ We either succeed or [get the chance to] grow. When our thinking truly gets to this level, we no longer fear failure because we ‘can’t fail.’ (What’s interesting here, is that most people who ‘fear failure’ try to eliminate the failure rather than eliminating the fear. Eliminating failure is impossible, but eliminating the fear only requires a change in our thinking!) Either outcome, or anywhere in the range of possible outcomes, is valuable to us. At this level we tend to be quick to take action, and take action often, because no mater what…we ‘win’!
To find out more about personal growth and being ‘growth oriented’, check out the “personal growth” category of this site here.
Question: So what do you think? What level are you on most of the time? Is this model helpful to you; can you see how moving up through the levels would be valuable?
