Often, my clients say, I don’t like my current job and I want to find more enjoyable work.” It’s important for coaches to assist their clients in disentangling work activities that are intrinsically motivating to perform from those that are not.  Mihaly Csiksaentmihalyi’s concept of “flow” is a great one to introduce to your clients. Also, have your clients take one of these two assessments to discover skills they’re motivated to perform: 1) Knowdell™ Motivated Skills Card Sort, and 2) SkillScan™ Career Driver.

Coaching on Flow
Mihaly Csiksaentmihalyi, author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, conducted research on people and discovered that flow—enjoying what you’re doing and losing track of time—occurs when both the skills and challenge are high. Use some or all of the following questions with your clients to help them uncover work activities they most enjoy and the types of challenging situations they want to use them for.

• Think about a time when you were totally absorbed in what you were doing at work (or in life) and lost track of time? What were you doing? What was challenging about this activity and/or situation?
• When else can you remember being absorbed and losing track of time? (Ask this question several times to pull out various experiences.)
• What common threads do you see in these experiences?
• How could you have more of these experiences?
• What work roles include these activities?
• Where in your current company could you perform these activities?
• Where else you could you perform these activities and experience this same challenge?
• What’s your key takeaway about flow?

Knowdell™ Motivated Skills Card Sort

This is one of several card sorts developed by Dick Knowdell. You can order this inexpensive deck of cards and accompanying worksheets at Career Trainer. Or, you can order and administer this assessment online. Each card lists one activity with a brief definition, e.g., “Conceptualize: Conceive and Internally Develop Concepts and Ideas.” Cards are sorted based on two variables: 1) level of enjoyment, and 2) level of skill. The five levels of enjoyment range from ‘Totally Delight in Using’ to ‘Strongly Dislike Using.’ And, the three degrees of skill range from ‘Highly Proficient’ to ‘Lack Desired Skill Level.’

After your clients have finished sorting the cards, ask them to record their results on a “Motivated Skills Worksheet.” Next, ask them to review their motivated skills—highly proficient in and totally delight in using; burnout skills—highly proficient in and strongly dislike using; and skills to develop—possess little or no skill and totally delight in using their burnout skills. Then, use some or all of the following coaching questions to heighten your clients’ self-awareness about their skills:

• How frequently are you using these motivated skills at work? How could you increase your opportunity to use them?
• How frequently are you using these burnout skills at work? How could you decrease your use of them?
• How could develop the skills you enjoy using but aren’t skilled in? How else?
• What’s your most empowering insight from this card sort?

Note: Watch for Part II of this article during the week of May 24, 2010.

Copyright 2010. Nancy Branton