The other day I was lucky enough to be in Sweden with a wonderful group of leaders from a Swedish global organisation. This was module 3 of a three module programme and everyone was really happy to be together again.
These people are amazing experts in their field and recognised as such in their organisation.
After a busy first day, we went to visit a local celebrity blacksmith- Sme Johan - who demonstrated how to create a bottle opener from a rod of iron. He went through every step in the process and demonstrated how to do it. It probably took him about 10 minutes in all to get it done if that! He did it with a smile on his face, addressing everyone, answering questions and then he said:
“Okay guys, now it’s your turn!”
We were split into 3 groups, each group with an expert blacksmith to support us.
What do you think happened?
As soon as we went to our forges, grabbed the iron and put it in the fire to heat up, making sure that we held the bar with the hot end down towards the floor (which were the first steps) and then took them to our anvils and picked up our hammer, all the other steps went out of our head.
We had all understood the process perfectly and yet when we went to put it into action, we either couldn’t seem to remember or - as one person said - “I just can’t seem to get my body to do what I know it should do!” 😂
At the end of the two hours we were given, every single person went away with a bottle opener they had made. Some had needed more support than others, but everyone left with a sense of achievement and something that looked like a bottle opener and that worked (we were given bottles of local apple juice to try it on)
The learnings these experts went away with were many and included:
So next time you get frustrated because you’ve told someone what to do and shown them how to do it and it still doesn’t work, ask yourself first, how can I enable them to succeed?
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✨ About Sonia Gavira ✨
Sonia Gavira MBA, PCC is a leadership and executive coach, consultant and Certified Practitioner in Brain and Behaviour Change and Master Practitioner in NLP. Coming from a strong commercial background in marketing to Marketing Director level. Sonia has spent more than 20 years working with Executives, Directors and Managers in organisations helping them lead themselves, their teams and their organisations successfully.
Today Sonia’s interest lies in helping leaders embrace a new style of leadership that allows people to be themselves and embrace compassion, care and kindness as well as strength, power and decisiveness - polarities that too often drive leaders one way or the other. This has lead her to be involved in a number of programmes helping women ask for and progress to senior roles within organisations, and do so in a way that balances all aspects of their life.Sonia is also an expert in motivation, enabling individuals, teams and organisations to tap into what will drive them to peak performance.
