Armchair experts

“Go on, son, go on! Round the back, and pass! Pass! Damn it, you **** ****ing ******, you’re useless! Get off the pitch! Retire! ****** off back to Portugal!”

And so flows the abuse advice of the armchair football expert towards the TV, in the vain hope that it’ll somehow inspire young Pedro to score an impossible goal for Somethingorother City.

The problem with this advice?

Pedro can’t act on it. And not just because the TV is a one-way medium.

The problem with advice

He can’t act on it because:

  1. It is delivered in the moment, not during a reflective period when Pedro could digest the implications, draw some conclusions, and change his gameplay.
  2. It is offensive, so even if he wanted to take it, he probably wouldn’t.
  3. It is delivered in chunks too large to be actionable.

Have you ever had good advice that you just didn’t take?

Reflecting on that now, was it perhaps for one or all three of the above mentioned reasons?

Generally, we find that to be the case.

Feedback you can take

Which is why we at Entelechy do advice – which we prefer to call feedback – differently.

When you buy the Discover solution from us, your main products at the end of it will be two reports – an individual Character Key for each staff member, and a company Character Kaleidoscope.

These reports contain a wealth of information for both individuals and leadership to learn from, but it’s the structure that we give to the information that makes the difference. We have created reports that give insight in manageable chunks, that therefore lead to action.

Individuals will need to spend time with their reports to get the most out of them. In so doing, they should be asking themselves three questions:

What is this data saying?

Why do we need to know this?

How can we action this insight in the workplace?

Learning journey

As the Discover solution is a learning journey, our coaches do provide suggested actions to the learner, which can help guide them. However, with time, and once the learner is comfortable with our system, the real power of our reports emerges. This is where the data provides insights which the employee or leader can see for themselves require an action.

Once they have learned to identify these actions, they can commit to them with full confidence, and achieve them with relative ease.

At this point the learner has become an expert at learning, and your company will have a virtuous cycle of professional and personal growth among its employees.

Learn, reflect, repeat

To this end, we recommend undertaking the Discover process every 6 to 12 months. As people grow, so the status of their Character Qualities will change. New challenges will emerge, which will require a change in focus on the Qualities being developed.

By repeating the Discover process year on year, you can track progress – both the individual’s progress, and that of the company, towards their entelechy.

P.S. If you’re now humming ‘Ironic’ by Alanis Morissette – apologies ;)

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