Over the last twenty years we have found that many of the people we meet do not have a stable work – life balance. They take work home – huge amounts!!! They find their relationships are breaking down in many aspects of their life, and the only response seems to be that of filling up all the available time with even more work – hardly a recipe for stable relationships at home or with friends, let alone work. Perhaps you feel as if you always have to make the same bad choices – they did not seem bad at the beginning but they soon turned that way. Perhaps the decisions you made turned out to rather worse than expected, perhaps the consequences were not as expected – who would have thought such an innocent decision could have such negative consequences? And this often turns into a spiral downwards.

But does it have to be this way? Well, the answer is NO.

What is required is a robust and logical process that enables us to examine the choices that lie before us – to make sound judgements as to the path to take; that enables us to evaluate the options before the decision is taken.
Perhaps this sounds too good to be true? Well maybe, but the TOC (Theory of Constraints) Thinking Processes are capable of doing just this.
Consider the map shown below:

Obtaining Balance: This is all about keeping a check on the three key aspects of our lives, our relationships at work, our relationships within the family and then all the other relationships that we have. How do we keep these relationships in balance? How do we stop any one from dominating the other two often to the exclusion of parts of the others? These are the kind of questions we deal with within the personal focus approach.

Making Good Choices: Many people are faced each and every day with choices, from the large scale such as where am I going to live and should I take this job, to the small and mundane. But what conditions my choices? How can I describe the choices I have in order to make better choices in the future? What assumptions am I making when trying to make a choice? These are the kind of issues we deal with within the personal focus approach. We also explore the differences between choices and decisions, how to understand the differing assumptions that lie behind every choice, and thus determine the assumptions that lie behind every decision.

Making Good Decisions: The choices we make determine the decisions we take. If we change the choice then the decisions usually change as well, so we need to have a better process to help in the whole business of decision-making. We take time in the Personal Focus approach to develop the ability to make better decisions, those that enable us to achieve what we set out to achieve in our lives.

Understanding the potential negative consequences: Every choice and therefore every decision contains the possibility of a negative outcome, an unforeseen consequence which had we known about it, might have avoided. Being able to properly assess the risks posed by such consequence lies at the heart of this aspect of Personal Focus.

Measuring progress: It is vital that we can measure progress towards our objective, yet many people do not have any such measurements. When there are measures they are usually unclear or not capable of any accuracy. Therefore one key outcome of the Personal Focus approach is the development of sound measures, and their use.

This is something which many people aspire to, but often give up on. It is critical within any work-life balance activity. We have developed, over the past twelve years, a robust and holistic coaching process that helps people to achieve their goals in life. This might involve creating the opportunity to rediscover what was once given up, or simply setting out the roadmap to realise a dream. We hold to the belief that we only truly learn when we learn for ourselves.

We also believe that everyone wants to do a good job, or did at some point in the past before their motivation was damaged, and that they have potential way beyond their current level of performance. The challenge for many people today is that they have not been allowed to think and have therefore forgotten how to make, or are too frightened to make, the necessary choices and decisions. Suddenly expecting them to be able to do this (to be empowered) is unrealistic. Organisations will die if their leaders do not learn this truth and coach their people to accept responsibility for themselves: for their attitude, their behaviour, their unique talent and their performance.

In the mind-map above we recognised the links between choices and decisions, so consider the diagram below:

When there is a need to make a choice - usually to do with taking a step towards a goal - which choice is the right one? Once we have made our choice there are decisions to be made, and the choice determines the decisions, change the choice and the decisions also change. But not all decisions are straightforward, often there are decisions, which although in line with the choice made are not easy to take and might even prove to be too tough to make – in which case we find we, or maybe those around us, do not subordinate to the decision and fail to implement it. At this point we find ourselves blocked.

Dramatic transformation is possible, and with belief, can be achieved remarkably quickly

This is where we have developed the Personal Focus approach based on the tools and techniques contained within the TFC (Thinking for Change) Methodology. On a one-to-one basis I work with you to determine just what is stopping you from moving forward towards your chosen goal in life. What is it that is making your relationships at work, perhaps even at home or with other people outside of both work and family so problematic? By using the focusing power of the TFC tools we can quickly determine the core issues and start to understand why they are having such a devastating effect on your life. (Please see our Organisational Focus page for more details about the TFC approach).

Once we have uncovered the cause, we can now start to build the solution, the roadmap forward, with the key changes that must be made in order to achieve both personal goals and also team/organisational goals. The final step is to implement the solution – make it happen so that you are no longer blocked, no longer frustrated with the lack of progress towards your goals and aspirations. I also provide on-going coaching to ensure that progress is maintained, leading to self-sufficiency.

The first people in the organisation to need Personal Focus coaching are often the senior leaders. They need to learn how to be coaches themselves so they can enable their manager/leaders, who can then in turn enable the front-line staff. In addition to this personal development journey, the leaders need to enable teams to learn to think properly and to handle change pro-actively and to do this in the context of the organisation as one whole team. The whole is always greater than the sum of the parts and with TOC-focused coaching the whole can become unconstrained by conflict, limiting beliefs and outdated thinking.

The fee for 7 days of intensive one-to-one problem analysis and solution-creation using the TOC Thinking Process method is £6000 + VAT.

If you would like further information or wish to arrange a course tailored to meet your specific needs please contact us by telephone or e-mail:

TEL: 01664 502860
E-MAIL: dianej@toc-lean.com

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