These resources are links to activities I often use in my design leadership coaching. They’re free for you to use yourself personally, but not for distributing as your own coaching or training materials.
Future Work Visualisation
It’s not the title or the abstract role that makes work worthwhile. It’s the tangible day-to-day activities that lift us up or grind us down. Sometimes those two things get dislocated. This is a simple experiment to help you find your compass for decisions about work, career pathway and life. You’ll need a pen and notebook with you and, ideally, go for a walk somewhere awe-inspiring on your own to do it.
Three Column Filter
Sometimes it’s easy to rationalise a role that’s not really going to work for you or bend your principles thinking the rest is going to be fine. The Three Column Filter is a way to filter a possible job role using three columns. It’s slightly different from Ikigai in that it’s not about all your life. Plus it’s simpler and quicker. You’ll need pen and paper, sticky notes or an online whiteboard like MURAL or Miro.
Personal Manifesto
As you start to think about what you’re all about, laying out your stall and wares in a personal manifesto is a great place to start. I feel sure I’ve stolen a lot of this from Jeff Gothelf’s Forever Employable, but mine came out of conversations with him and, later, with other coachees.
A personal manifesto should come pretty easily given the other activities. Here’s a suggested format as a Google Doc. It’s a mix of personal philosophy and what you might end up putting on your website, portfolio or LinkedIn profile. It usually takes several iterations and you’re looking to write a document for yourself first, so no glossy promotional language. Try and keep it as tangible as possible.