EVUCA – Supporting Individuals to Find Their Ways

A Coaching Model By Goran Gakidev, Leadership Coach, MACEDONIA

Since I am leadership, you can call also executive coach, what I have been working lately is to help individuals and groups in organizations how to broaden/deepen their awareness.

That will inspire them to go outside of the conform zone, and the only way of doing that is to be open to the opportunities and challenges that are coming in their way. There is a lot of question coming from my coaching clients such as: am I ready for that role or for that change. Coming from such questions and also the experience in the coaching space the coaching model of EVUCA is helping or supporting individuals to find their ways of dealing with the situation that they are in. And this is what I mean with EVUCA

EVUCA Is Helping or Supporting Individuals to Find Their Ways of Dealing With the Situation

E – Energy
V – Vulnerability
U – Uniqueness
C – Courageousness
A – Action

Energy – Energy, not oil, not solar, wind, not natural gas but about Human Energy and how single-handedly has the power to unite and transform companies, groups, and communities.

Unfortunately, very few leaders talk about it, and even few have mastered it, but when you find it Energy is like discovering your passion, it’s like a forward charging spirit that creates challenges and embraces the change in challenges.

When you think about it, I am sure that each of you has faced a situation where someone is more present or when you are around them there something happening with you, you are more sort of real. It’s like you walk into an environment and things are moving faster, subconsciously you want to be part of it, but you cannot articulate what is it and how you are feeling about it. When you think about that moment it’s like emotional electricity, it has the power of uniting ordinary people as a collective to do extraordinary things.

In my opinion, in the coaching space, the energy is a key part to create trust and intimacy with the client and the other way around, client-coach. Recently I was watching ‘My Octopus Teacher documentary movie and in one of the scenes where Craig was trying to get close to the octopus, he was observing (as he calls her) and getting close to her every time that he would go deep in the water. In the beginning, the octopus was afraid of Craig, and aside from the near to close distance he could not get more. After days of observation one day, Craig gets near the octopus and they share a moment from a very close distance looking at each other. Out of nowhere, the octopus decides to stretch one of her tentacles through Craig’s palm. This has been described as a key moment for Craigs adventure in the ocean and a moment of creating trust with other species. Was trust was the result of the energy they shared..?

IMO energy played a role in creating the relationship between Craig and the octopus. The positive energy shared, resulted in trust and connection.

Vulnerability – Even nowadays if we decide to survey and explore many cultures, we will see that societies are looking at this limitation instead of looking at it as something that can bring different/added value in other ways. When we think about I if we are vulnerable means that we let things that we don’t know or things that we are not certain of coming to us. We look at them as a challenge. When we think about it vulnerability this is what boosts individual and collective creativity and innovation. As Brene Brown would put this; “if failure’s not an option, innovation’s not an option.”

Vulnerability is all about probing and accepting shortcomings and weaknesses, as we may call them imperfections. It’s about the willingness to accept the fact your way of doing things will make people to be irritated. Also, the readiness to take into possession mistakes and absorb criticisms. The illusion about leadership is that it requires the repression of vulnerability.

Yet vulnerability is in reality the most fundamental prerequisite to having courage, of course, is what it takes to lead. People usually look up to others and look for traits that others have, but that rarely do they look in themselves – the same happens with courage.

It’s scary to know that if you put yourself out there over and over again, you’ll be rejected some time or other. The key challenge here is how prepared we are to accept this and keep moving on.

In the coaching space, we need to create that trust with the client for them to come to the coaching session in their ‘true colors’ or to be vulnerable to share what they are dealing with. This will help the session to be more impactful and it will address the real cause for the reason of the coaching discussion. For all of this to happen the coach needs to serve as a role model and to embrace vulnerability by sharing statements or examples and then check with the client what does he or she makes of that.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood…”

Unique (Personality) – Everyone has different interests, strengths, and shortcomings creating their personality, creating each person unique, unlike anyone. As part of my consulting role where I get to engineer learning & development solutions, the clients are asking me if you have a structure of your offering. Here, as in the coaching approach, we come from a perspective that everyone is a different one from another making him/her unique hence there is no such thing as one fits all. This makes performance in the organization and life too more enjoyable or easy and sometimes more difficult. If we try to further go and explore what makes individuals different in some of the studies a group of psychologists identified that personality is put together of five basic elements, and that is: comfort, devotion, sensitivity, extrovert, and willingness to experience.

Each of the individuals has these characteristics to a different level and therefore that makes them unique.

With the uniqueness component, we want to make the coaching session a unique space where clients/individuals will be able to feel their own, a place where they can feel their presence, and a place where they can dominate themselves.

Courage – ‘Big Idea’ is the need to build courage in the workspace to enable creativity and innovation. Usually, in organizations, we see managers, leaders, and their teams encounter challenges to show up in their true colors and be vulnerable at work, with this approach they are blocking or sabotaging the creation of new ideas and innovation as a whole.

Leadership is about stepping up and being brave, it is the ability to choose courage over comfort. To choose to go into problems with open and whole hearts over protecting and calculating in every given situation. This way we are building an organizational culture based on bravery and vulnerability.

Stepping up and being courageous is a collection of skill sets that can be taught, observed, and measured. Having said that, working and supporting this behavior has many benefits for the organization and society as a whole.

If you think about it, on daily basis leaders need to face making critical decisions. In those moments of uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure vulnerability are what we are experiencing. Therefore, recognizing and accepting this state is important to continue and deal with the current situation.

Leadership is not about titles or the corner office. It’s about the willingness to step up, put yourself out there, and lean into courage. The world is desperate for braver leaders. It’s time for all of us to step up.

In the concept of coaching application courageousness comes from both sides, the client and how he or she is courageous towards achieving their goals and the coach how courageous he/she is in terms of challenging the client.

Action – if we want to become a leader, we don’t need to wait for the fancy title or the corner office. We can start taking action, we can also start thinking and communicating like a leader even before we are assigned to the new role or even before getting the promotion. When we speak with individuals in the coaching space there is always some barrier that is getting in the way for them to act as a leader without having the title – and that’s what leadership is, isn’t it? Even at some points if you are starting fresh in an organization doesn’t mean that you cannot lead and make an impact.

EVUCA Key Point for Individuals in Organizations

The key point for individuals in organizations is not to wait and to take opportunities immediately, regardless of their role/position in the organization.

“It’s never foolish to begin preparing for a transition no matter how many years away it is or where you are in your career,” says Muriel Maignan Wilkins, coauthor of Own the Room: Discover Your Signature Voice to Master Your Leadership Presence.

In the coaching space and mainly toward concluding our coaching discussion we need to explore the options needed for the client to put into action for them to take a step towards the desired goal.

The world nowadays needs leaders more than ever, and the top-down leadership is outdated and does not work anymore, at times could be even counterproductive. In this time of unprecedented change and turbulence, we need individuals who can spark with energy be courageous enough to go through the unknown and take action for creating something better.

References

Brené Brown Vulnerability, Losing Armor and Gaining Power | CRM .. N.p, n.d
Act Like a Leader Before You Are One N.p, n.d