Move Forward by Letting Go
Posted on | November 24, 2009 | No Comments
Recently I was working with a client company that is struggling to survive in the current economic downturn. The leadership decided to take a few days to work on their team effectiveness and establish their goals for next year.
As we worked on plans to move forward, group members raised a number of issues about negative interactions with the more junior staff. One member of the team asked, “When did that happen?” The response indicated that the incident had occurred quite a while ago.
The group quickly recognized that it was entertaining old issues, so the team adopted a ground rule that, for the remaining meeting time, they would identify the timing of any incident they mentioned.
The question of “when did that happen” had incredible power. Locating the events in time allowed the executive team to see that it was trying to lead into the future, but that it was stuck in the past. That’s like trying to drive your car looking backwards!
This realization gave them the ability to sort out the current issues from the old ones. Then they were able to let go of the problems or issues that were no longer relevant. Removing the old and irrelevant issues freed the group to shift their attention and energy to what was ahead.
The next time you are in a meeting or facilitating a discussion in which people keep bringing up old stories, you might want to offer these questions:
1. When did it happen?
2. Who was involved?
3. Has it been resolved?
4. Can you let it go?
5. If not, what needs to be done?
Helping people to step back and examine their stories gives them the power to choose to let something go—or to do something to resolve the issue. Letting go of the past will free them up to shift their attention to what is actually happening and what they want to create. And that’s a much more powerful place to be!
Post script: This client was very successful in shifting their attention to designing some great processes to move forward.
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