Notice the difference between your elbow and your bicep. Squish the bony knob on the back of your arm. Clearly an elbow’s function is to enable the arm to bend. Now move up to the inside of your arm and feel your bicep. Go ahead and flex the bicep and notice the trendy bulge (or the potential for bulge). This part of your arm is designed for exerting strength. Elbows are for flexibility and biceps are for strength. Both are necessary in order to leverage your arm’s total capacity. The point? I have about three:

· There are some things we just can’t change that much about ourselves.
· If we are an elbow, we waste time trying to become a bicep.
· Changing how we work with people instead of changing people is a more effective and satisfying practice.

Imagine Kay - a young, successful entrepreneur who is currently selling her first company and building her second. Kay’s strong bias for action and her unstoppable innovative mind make her a bicep. The nimble workforce that is flexible and effectively executing on her vision are elbows. Both elements together have tremendous capacity to move mountains, and they have. However, there are times when Kay’s team gets worn out by her energy and ideation. They believe she needs to become more introspective and better at planning before she asks them to implement her ideas. Kay agrees with her loyal employees, yet she can’t seem to force herself to be more introspective and she has become frustrated.

At first glance the situation looks like a reasonable request from a supportive workforce. It was Kay’s frustration with “forcing introspection” that clued me into her “elbow to bicep” situation. Instead of working to change Kay by making her a better planner and instead of ignoring the vital feedback from her employees, we decided to change the way the parts worked together. The team needed the pictures inside Kay’s head. Kay needed a process to get those ideas on paper. I stepped in (a team member could have done the job as well) and asked Kay questions about her desired results. I facilitated and captured her introspection via a quick brainstorming session. In less than a hour Kay had a concise and effective plan. Her ideas were directly clarified and crisply communicated to the team who then had a stationary target, complete with measurable deliverables. In my mind the key to this situation was to draw out rather than twist and contort. We changed the way we worked with Kay instead of changing Kay.

Isn’t it funny how our knee-jerk reaction is to twist and contort rather than to draw-out and honor? When we find ourselves saying things like, “I should be doing it this way but…” or “I know they’re right yet I can’t seem to force myself to…..” be cautious. We might be doing more harm than good. Draw on strength and talent where we find it. Be wise to change the way we work with people instead of changing people. Unless we stop trying to force an elbow to work like a bicep, we’re going to have less capacity and some pretty ugly looking arms out there.

Lyn is the former Associate Director of a PMO and currently serving as the Director of Innovation at Franklin Covey Coaching LLC. If you’d like a to join one of Lyn’s webinars, free teleclasses or sign up for a complimentary coaching session, inquire by writing to lyn@soulsalt.com.

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