Career Change & Executive Coaching

4. Finding the Light In Your Career

5. Talent ID - Ava - Peace Takes Courage

Bored IT Professionals are the 'flavour of the month' client-wise and the constant refrain is that "There is no challenge anymore." So, how do you inspire a jaded appetite?

First, you have to help the individual rid themselves of all the baggage they've collected over the years, whilst at the same time getting them to use their (often long dormant) right-brain for a change to do some future-thinking, or envisioning, as I tend to call it. 

Sometimes this can be a 'challenge' as highly educated individuals can have spent practically their whole lives in an 'Institution!' (V Left-brain!) of some description. What I do is 'run' them through a series of exercises that allow them to rebalance their brains. (for a while) This always works spectacularly.

Did you know that when you want to use your right brain in any creative endeavour that you have to ask the left brain to be quiet for a while? You have to ask quietly and politely, otherwise you will have the 'little voice' inside your brain saying "That's not right, it's not a straight line, you haven't got the time, what does it mean?" And so on.

Once you've quietened the internal voice, you can allow your right brain to take over your creative thinking and 'go with the flow.'

According to Daniel Goleman in his seminal work 'Emotional Intelligence,' if children develop an activity that allows them to routinely concentrate and in so doing develop a 'flow of consciousness' - in activities such as playing the flute or playing chess, they are more likely to be more 'successful' as adults.

This has always reminded me of some of the Victorian emphasis on 'self discipline' in learning. In fact having self discipline is a theme in much of the laboratory experimentation, he describes. One of my favorites, is the experiment where five year old children were presented with marshmallows and told not to touch them until the experimenter returned.

Watched through a two-way mirror the children tried all sorts of ways of resisting the attraction. Some sat on their hands, turned their backs, talked to themselves - but many could not in the end resist eating the marshmallows. The ones who did, however, went on to become more successful and wealthy adults.

A great tip, that I've used successfully for years, with MBAs to help rebalance and restore their creative juices is to get them to pick up a creative activity that perhaps they've neglected or even to try something new like drawing, painting, going to galleries, or playing a musical instrument.

Perhaps IT professionals with ennui should utilise their spatial awareness, organizational ability and attention to nuance, to learn a language or write a book and bring more creativity into their IT work?