Christmas is coming quickly and it's a natural time of year to reflect. Below is a snapshot of some of this year’s blogs to provide a summary of the key messages as well as to provide some reflection questions...

Elon Musk’s wisdom:

“One of the really tough things is figuring out what question to ask. Once you figure out the question, then the answer is relatively easy.”

I loved this quote from Elon because this is the premise of coaching and knowing the power of the right question is the reason I do what I do.

I personally have replaced the concept of a new year’s resolution with a ‘new year’s question’. My question for 2019 is ‘why not?’

Rather than asking ‘why’, the ‘why not’ question is a little bit of a dare to oneself – to take a risk and to be bold. This was a favourite saying of a late friend who lived his life to the fullest.

What’s your 2019 question? 

The black art of accountability:

My two sons enrolled in Ju Jitsu classes this year. My commitment to them (and my wife) was that I would ferry them every Tuesday/Thursday evening. I made that commitment as I felt it was about time I put at least one of the kids' activities into the schedule as a priority. I was going well until one afternoon I called my wife asking her to pick up the boys because "I ran out of time". I grimaced as I heard those words escape my mouth.

Picture this. You are having an incredibly busy day preparing for an important meeting in the afternoon on top of 100 other things on the list. You are rushing from one thing to the other and you realise you haven't yet found time to have your lunch. Do you stop and eat or keep ploughing through?

Let's now change the scenario….on this incredibly busy day you fall down some stairs and break your arm. Do you go to hospital? Or are you too busy?

It's interesting to reflect on what things fall into the non-negotiables and what is negotiable.

A common personality trait of accountable teams is an absolute clarity on the non-negotiables, and having the bravery to acknowledge what is negotiable. A common personality trait of unaccountable teams is that everything is put into the non-negotiables category, thereby making everything negotiable…

What are your non-negotiables and why? What are your negotiables and why? 

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Merry Christmas and happy reflecting!