My father taught me the most powerful lesson in learning to drive: We were driving on the motorway and, as I was a cautious driver, he asked me to pass the truck with a trailer in front of us. As the truck was travelling fast, I had to accelerate hard to get past him, which was very stressful for me. As I was passing, halfway up the hill, I realised with shock that I was driving slowly towards the truck and was in danger of driving into the side of it.
Fortunately, my father was able to turn the steering wheel back in time and he urged me to look where I wanted to steer the car. Due to the shock, this lesson is deeply engraved in my memory and has helped me ever since, and not just when driving. Some time ago, I shared this episode in a coaching session with a client who was also in danger of colliding – with a work colleague.
My client worked as a manager in an industrial company that was confronted with major changes. As a result, responsibilities were not always clearly defined and she had to constantly coordinate with her colleagues at the same level. She expressed the suspicion, or rather the conviction, that one of her peers wanted to expand his sphere of influence at her expense.
Take your adversary out of the crosshairs
Her supposed adversary was the subject of several of our coaching sessions and I realised that she had become so focused on him that he was constantly distracting her. He regularly made her emotional and thus had power over her.
During our conversation, she realised that she had lost sight of her goals; she could no longer see them as her work colleague was standing in front of them. I offered her an intervention that I use with myself in similar situations: Firstly, I admit to myself that the intentions of my supposed adversary may be different from those I am imputing to him. And secondly, I shift the person in my mind’s eye out of focus to the far right so that I can still see him in the corner of my eye. This gives me a clear view of what I want to achieve, but I have my (supposed) opponent in my field of vision in case he is working against my interests.
Emotion management means freedom
My client successfully applied this approach. By focussing on her goals, she was able to react calmly and thoughtfully when her work colleague did something that contradicted them. It became irrelevant to her what the motives behind his actions were. After all, it is his right to pursue his own goals. With her new attitude, my customer had her emotions under control and was able to act in a considered way. Previously, her work colleague had controlled her – consciously or unconsciously – through her emotions. And last but not least, she was no longer so sure that he really wanted to harm her, which improved their working relationship.
So always keep your goals in focus and possible obstacles in the external field of vision.