in a high-tech business.
❏ To create a climate of learning and fun in all or most of my
interactions with others.
❏ To be a caring, understanding, and guiding parent.
One of the top salespeople in a telecommunications company has
targets to achieve and does quite naturally want to achieve them.
However, when he considers his existing and potential customers,
what he thinks about is not how much he is going to make out of
each of them but rather how he can make their time with him
valuable and enjoyable. To do this he thinks about his state and
how he wants to be when he is with them. He puts his attention
on what is within his control, his way of being in the world. He
achieves all his financial targets with remarkable consistency.
In the example at the beginning of this chapter, one of the
reasons Kevin did not achieve his goals was that those goals
depended on others and on external circumstances. When he
didn't achieve what he wanted it was because his manager or
the business climate or his customers weren't quite right. He
had not asked himself how he could be different whatever the
external circumstances. He wanted others to be different. A
useful question here is to ask yourself, “What kind of person do
I want to become?”
Where is your attention in relation to your outcomes? On
yourself or on others? Do your outcomes depend on someone
else being there or responding in a certain way? If so, they are
not self-maintained. In a story in Waiting for the Mountain to Move,
Charles Handy describes a traveler who, journeying around the
world, came to a road and across this road was a mountain
blocking the way. The traveler sat down and waited for the
mountain to move. If your outcomes are not self-maintained
then you too will be waiting for the mountain to move.
When Lance Armstrong recovered from cancer and was
considering entering the Tour De France, his goal was not to win
the Tour, it was to cycle competitively. He won. When David
Hemery took part in the final of the Mexico Olympics as
potentially the slowest candidate, his goal was not to win the
race but to do his personal best. He won.
Waiting for the mountain to
moveACHIEVE WHAT YOU REALLY WANT: WELL-FORMED OUTCOMES 273