Want to Be More Engaged and Energized? Identify What is Important to You.

What matters to you as a professional and individual? What are the things that give you energy and engage you? Identifying your values, and finding alignment between values and what you do, leads to feelings of fulfillment, engagement, positivity, and energy.

Think about a positive experience you had while working on a project (professional, personal, volunteer, etc.). While participating, how did you feel physically, emotionally, intellectually? How did you feel when it was complete? People describe these experiences as motivating, rewarding, and compelling. They describe feeling accomplished, proud, and capable.

Engagement in one aspect of your life creates positive emotions and drive for you as a whole. For example, participating in the volunteer work that you love and get energy from, can lead to positive feelings at work, home, and other areas of your life.

3 Steps to find ways to incorporate more of what matters to you in your daily life.

Step 1 – Identify what’s important to you

First, think about a great experience you had. What were you doing? How did you feel? Who were you with? What values were being met at that time?

Now, name what’s important and meaningful to you. Include the values you identified in Step 1 and add to the list. (The values below are examples to consider.)   

Some examples of values:

Achievement, Adventure, Collaboration, Compassion, Contribution, Courage, Creativity, Decision Making, Equality, Family, Financial Security, Friendships Fun, Health, Helping Others, Humility, Independence, Influencing Others, Interpersonal Relationships, Innovation, Integrity, Justice, Knowledge, Leadership, Learning, Mastery, Nature, Physical Activity, Recognition, Self-Acceptance, Self-Expression, Service, Social Change, Spirituality, Stability, Teamwork

Next, choose your top 10 values and then rank them from most important to less important.

Step 2 – Analyze

Where are your top values being met in your life? Which values are not being met to a degree you are happy with?

Step 3 - Take Action

Identify where can you do more and experience more of your values at work, home, volunteer work, community, etc. and plan to take action. Start with one value.

Example: If a top value is interpersonal relationships and you are not satisfied in this, consider how to increase your interpersonal relationships.

• If work feels “all business”, start connecting with coworkers on a personal basis. Perhaps this means a virtual coffee with a peer, a 30-minute non-business meeting with your team members, or taking 5 minutes of the team meeting to ask (and listen) to how everybody is doing.

• Personal connections need to be leveled up? Reach out to old and new friends, family, or acquaintances by phone, email, text, or social media. Choose 1-2 people to start with and go from there. Set a goal for yourself about how many people or reach-outs you’ll make per week.

Repeat Steps 2 and 3 to get more of what you value in your daily life and to experience the resulting positive effects.

This 3-step exercise can be used to incrementally help shift your engagement and energy in meaningful ways by identifying what matters to you, clarifying what you want to experience more of, and making plans and taking action to experience what you value.

3 Questions to Spur Leadership Development

Routinely asking yourself these 3 questions will lead to substantial professional growth.

Learning is central to leadership development and learning from experience is a powerful way to expedite growth. Using this simple 3-Question reflective practice helps leaders improve their professional performance including presentation skills, executive presence, conflict management, communication, giving feedback, decision making, and much more.  

The 3-Question model spurs reflection on actions taken and prompts the intentional setting of action plans. While it is practical and easy to master, the benefits are considerable and well proven. The 3-Questions:

What? So What? Now What?

Imagine a scenario where you encountered a challenging professional situation. Next walk yourself through the following questions and reflect on your feelings and answers to plan for future action.

What? - Ask yourself one of more of the following WHAT questions to reflect on the full context of the situation: What happened? What did you expect? What were you feeling? What were others feeling? What was your reaction?

So What?  - Ask yourself one or more of these SO WHAT questions to gather meaning and significance: Why does it matter? What are the consequences? How does this link to your professional and/or personal development?

Now What? Ask yourself one or more of these NOW WHAT questions to plan your future actions: What will you do as a result of this experience? What will you do differently next time? How will you apply what you have learned?

How does this work?

“Leader A” was prepared for the presentation to the executive team but was disappointed in her own delivery. She used the 3-Question model to reflect and successfully improved this leadership skill. She asked herself:

What? The presentation did not get the feedback I hoped for. I felt nervous when they asked questions about the data sources because I didn’t have all of the details.

So What? I didn’t come across as effective and well prepared. At my level the expectation is that I can successfully manage these tough presentations.

Now What? I will drill down on the data sources and fully understand these before next week’s presentation. I will also anticipate specific questions that may arise and prepare for them.

To get started, use a journal to note your responses and action plans, or simply think through these questions. Apply your “Now What’s” and repeat the process. The cycle leads to noticeable growth and development.

How do you feel about that?

“How do you feel about that?”

This is not a question most professionals hear at work. Work related questions are typically objective or decisional in nature. What’s the status? What are the next steps? This likely works well for project meetings for example, but fall short when having development conversations or one-on-ones with staff. Objective and decisional questioning is helpful in all conversations and incorporating two additional question types will enhance the conversations you have with peers, team members, friends and family. Use these four questions types including objective and decisional that make up the ORID conversation framework. (ORID is an acronym derived from the first letters of the four levels of questioning):

1. Objective - Externally focused on gathering data, facts, and observations

2. Reflective - Internally focused on surfacing feelings, impressions, emotional tones, and perspectives

3. Interpretative - Related to meaning, purpose, significance, and implications

4. Decisional - Exploring options, risks and benefits, commitments, next steps

Through my experience as an Executive Coach, Human Resources Professional, and trainer I’ve learned about the power of effective questions and intentionally using questions to make personal connections, build rapport, enhance growth, gain commitment and more. In a team or 1:1 setting, use the ORID framework to have meaningful conversations that move the discussion from gathering external data, to the internal experience, making an interpretation of the experience and then determining a course of action based on insight gained. 

Sample Objective Questions: 

• Which comments or ideas caught your attention, and why? 

• What have you tried so far? 

• What were the results of that? 

Sample Reflective questions:

• How did this experience affect you?  

• How did the group react? 

• What was your gut reaction?

Sample Interpretative Questions:

• What was your key insight? 

• What was the most meaningful aspect of this activity? 

• What have you learned from this experience?

Sample Decisional Questions: 

• What will you do differently as a result of the experience? 

• What would you say about the experience to people who were not there? 

• How will you apply what you learned? 

Using this conversation framework will help you and the people you interact with. Combined with active listening this framework is a powerful leadership tool.