Write me an instruction manual to do it badly

This is one of my favourite coaching tools that I’ve rarely seen used.

I often help people (direct reports, mentees, clients, leaders) with breaking habits they’re stuck with – usually revolving around organisation or bad planning but this method works with other unhelpful patterns too.

If they’re at the beginning of the process and need help unlocking what they need to do, a useful place to start is the “Bad Manual”. It goes something like this.

Client. I’ve forgotten to follow up on something again. This happens all the time. It’s because I’m not organised, I know it is. I’m so bad at prioritising. I want to change but I’m not sure where I’m going wrong because I keep doing it all the time.

Coach. This sounds like a superpower. I mean if you’re doing it all the time, it sounds like you could write that manual exactly step by step on how to be really good at forgetting stuff.

Client. Huh. Yeah. Probably.

Coach. What would the instruction book look like? Talk through the steps.

Client. Well I guess to make sure that something will be missed in the next few weeks,

1. Right off the bat make sure you have a lot of stuff going on at the same time. If anyone asks you for something in the next few days, say yes because you need them to like you.
2. Make sure you remember those things in your head, exclusively. The human brain is an excellent place to store time dependent information. If you think it’s super important and you don’t trust your brain, write it on a piece of paper in close proximity. You will definitely remember that you did this.
3. Make sure that all of your stuff is at most 80% done until the day before it’s deadline – this will be motivation to do the last 20%.
4. Make sure that you never ask the people who gave you the deadlines twice – they are big and scary and important and they will definitely think you’re incompetent if you ask them again.

You get the idea.

Most people know that they need to be more organised, use a system for planning, stop saying yes to everything – but this list will look different to different people, and it’s a good way to get insight to the beliefs and triggers that are driving the behaviours. You can then explore whether these beliefs are serving them, how committed they are to using the tools they’ve chosen, how they’re going to create failsafe plans in case one method falls through. Maybe even explore what else they could do when they notice the warning signs.

Embracing the “Bad Manual” technique is just one of the ways to gain insights into why people are stuck in habits that aren’t serving them. A bit too big for a LinkedIn post, but I hope people find it useful, and please get in touch or connect with me if you want to discuss more!