At the outset, let me state that acquiring the competencies that matter to break the glass ceiling is not easy.
If you are an interested party, we recommend that you follow the “deep practise” approach. Here, you focus on breaking learning/skill boundaries which are at the edge of your current abilities and you keep going, boundary after boundary in a systematic manner. The critical factors for success:
- Identifying the boundaries to be broken to achieve the desired outcome. Remember, these boundaries have to be at the edge of your current abilities ( just a notch higher/wider) else, you risk too much frustration as you try and break the boundary which may result in you giving up the quest itself
- Once the boundaries are identified, they need to be sequenced, keeping efficiency and effectiveness factors in mind, to ensure that the outcome is achieved with ease. Again, this is rather difficult to achieve and it’s easy to make mistakes here
- A boundary is broken by a planned ( and not random) trial and error approach, where the individual tries an approach, fails, learns from the failure, modifies the approach and tries again. This cycle continues till the boundary is broken. Once a boundary is broken, principles of spacing and repetition has to be followed to ensure that the boundary stays broken!
If you see someone practising to acquire a skill/competency and is doing that in a rhythm, then the person is doing regular practise and not “deep practise”. If the person looks frustrated and not in a rhythm, the chances are that the person is involved in deep practise.
Now, you’d realize that it is rather difficult to go on this journey all by yourself. You are better off working with someone. Now, what characterizes this “someone”? To break a boundary, most of the times, you require some training, some mentoring and some coaching. In our experience, all 3 or at least 2 out of 3 are required for success. Most coaching/mentoring doesn’t include training and are designed for leaders who don’t need training ( or, that’s how it is portrayed). For the segment that we are dealing with (target segment) , pure play coaching/mentoring doesn’t work.
How do we operationalize all this? Sounds complex, right? Don’t worry, we take care of all the complexities and offer you a 3 step approach:
Step 1: Gap Analysis: we use a structured tool to arrive at the gaps in your competencies required (vis-à-vis the desired outcome)
Step 2: Decide on the Roadmap: Basis the size and kind of gaps, we discuss potential pathways and mutually agree on one. Agree on the desired outcome, duration, average monthly effort to be spent and engagement commercials ( a combination of retainership and a share of the outcome)
Step 3: Execution: the important thing to realise is that the onus of learning is on you. The coach/mentor is a facilitator on this your journey. You’ll have to get out of your comfort zone. Remember, deep practise is quite frustrating and you’ll be experiencing this for months at a stretch. Sign up for this only if you are up for this, else, it’s waste of everyone’s time.
