Design

Was it Steve Jobs that said “design isn’t about how something looks - its about how it works.” ? It was something that I thought might need some further inquiry when I was listening to one of the excellent “Dose of Leadership” podcasts this week. Richard Rierson was interviewing Christina Long. The link is at the end of this blog*.

Christina is a really successful individual. One of the things she talked about was how she ‘designed her decade’ on her approach to being forty years of age. I thought this was really interesting. Her view was that she needed to decide what she wanted life to look like when she was forty, then set about making it happen. ‘Setting a plan’, I suppose. This approach is all very well apart from the irrebuttable presumption that no plan will ever survive first contact with the enemy.

Now maybe there is a degree of the cynical ex-cop about me in that I believe that presumption to be pretty much the case in every aspect of life and business. There are just so many variables. Look at what is happening right now in March 2020. A human virus has short circuited the world. Stock markets are crashing, and the top part of Italy has basically been shut off! If you were an Italian and you’d built your retirement plan a decade ago on shares, your goal might well have gone down the pan this week!

This is why I think that Christina’s idea needs approaching with an extra dose of reality. Things change so quickly. You might step onto the ten year elevator on the day after your thirtieth birthday, but there’s no way you can foresee the life changing event the gods had planned for you in say your 33rd year. That event might well change your entire perspective on the world, and suddenly what seemed important in seven years time bears no resemblance to how you feel about today.

So is that to say that there isn’t any point to goal setting? Personally I think it is quite the contrary. Having an idea where you want to be is important. After all, isn’t it the stock interview question; “Where do you see yourself in five years time?” And five year increments actually might be a more realistic frame, rather than the longer timescale of a decade.

This is where, looking back after five decades, I wish I had a coach about 30 years ago. Hell - I wish everyone could be assigned a coach when they were twenty! Now don’t get me wrong. I was like every other twenty year old and knew it all! Hey, I could work this life thing out myself! I didn’t need someone telling me how to do it! And that is just exactly why I needed a coach. A coach doesn’t tell you how to do it. A mentor might, but not a coach. A coach will sit alongside you, and at their very best will just help you ask the right questions of yourself. I recall meeting a very experienced RAF pilot who had flown on the same aircraft type as an old friend of mine, who was a much revered airman, and accomplished test pilot. I inquired if he knew him? They had indeed flown together, and he regaled what an incredible influence he was on the flight deck. A simple “Are you sure you want to do that?” was enough to make even more senior pilots step back, re-assess and invariably re-plan their intent.

Imagine having someone to do that with you from the earliest stages of your adult life?

And this brings us back to the title of design. Life isn’t about how it looks. Instagram and its other incarnations enable people to give us a skewed perspective of their lives. It may look wonderful, but the reality is that it can a chaotic mess behind the scenes. Life is about how it works. If you are going to achieve a fulfilled one, it has to have some efficiencies. Sometimes the ‘machinery’ will break down. With a car, it is usually the better designed ones that will get us further down the road before they need attention. Humans are no different. and when a car starts to show signs of a fault, we take it to someone who knows what they are doing. If we don’t, we end up on the tow truck, hugely inconvenienced and facing a big bill. Why should we expect life to be any different.

A coach can help you do the same with your goals. They can help you design a plan, and then service it along the way. When I think back, there are so many occasions I can think of where knowing what I know now, I really do regret not having a coach on hand. So just maybe, the 21st Birthday present of the future is a couple of hours with one?

Derek Flint Cert.Ed., MCIPR

*https://www.doseofleadership.com/christina-long/