The importance of knowing what you want

Joe Ely writes about Lean Manufacturing Systems. One of the core tenets of Lean is to gather frequent feedback about the difference between what you planned to do and what you actually did, reflect on the difference and do something about it. The key thing is doing something about it. Today he tells a story about the importance of knowing what is wanted before you can take action.

This reminded me strongly of the concept of well-formed outcomes – one of the foundation stones of NLP. I find that often one of the most powerful coaching interventions is simply helping someone gain a clear view of what they want to happen and the nature of the first few steps. Something very powerful gets triggered in the unconscious mind by a clear view of what you want and many people report that change begins to happen shortly afterwards.