Coaching for Managers: Life Crafting

Are you a manager who wants to boost team morale and create a better experience at work?

Life crafting is a structured intervention designed to help individuals discover and cultivate their sense of purpose by aligning their actions with their core values, passions, and long-term goals. The process itself aligns with the structure of coaching, using a values-driven approach to goal-setting and then following through with support until the goal is attained. Life Crafting has roots in positive psychology and has been empirically validated to be effective in helping individuals find purpose and meaning in life. Research by Schippers and Ziegler (2019) highlights the positive impact of life crafting interventions on well-being and goal attainment. The structured approach of life crafting ensures that individuals can systematically work towards their goals while staying true to their core values (For more detailed information on the process and research behind life crafting, you can refer to the article "Life Crafting as a Way to Find Purpose and Meaning in Life" published in Frontiers in Psychology).

The Process of Life Crafting

1. Start with space for reflection:
   Begin with self-reflection exercises to identify values, passions, and long-term goals, and think through to different aspects of your life, such as your marriage, your relationships, your career, and look for what you value across all of those domains. Tools such as value surveys or strength assessments can be helpful. Managers can also head to Your Courageous Life for the free Shift Plan (available to all subscribers) for a guided tool that could be adapted for use with teams.
   

2. Goal Setting:

   Based on what you uncover, set goals that align with your identified values and passions. For example, if you realize that one of your highest values is freedom, you could set a goal to create 3 hours more of free time, each week. You could also use the SMART criteria (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) to formulate your goals. However your goals are set, be sure that you have some aspect of the goal that measures progress. For example, “Create more free time each week” is vague, but “Create 3 hours more of free time each week” is specific. For managers of teams, a goal might look like, “No-Meeting Fridays for the month of ____________.”

3. Planning:

   A goal without a plan is just a wish, something every coach knows. Managers can help their teams to develop detailed plans to achieve your goals. This may be something that you could initiate with your team collaboratively, or you could work on this during your one-on-ones. The plan doesn’t need to be exact and in fact should include room for pivots and consider possible obstacles.

4. Execution:

   At this stage, Managers can tell teams to implement plans and take actionable steps. It’s important however that progress is documented somewhere where it’s visible, so that it doesn’t get lost in the fray. Additionally, Managers need to support team members in allotting time each week for time to work on those goals. Regularly review team progress and adjust your plans as needed, but be clear with our teams about what it would look like to get too far out of bounds with accountability in making progress towards the goal.
   

5. Accountability and Support:

   To maintain accountability, teams can regularly check in on their progress, and seek support and feedback when adjustments need to be made.

6. Regular Review and Adjustment:

   Periodically review your goals and progress, and make sure that those review milestones are clear for everyone so that they know what deadlines are. Reflect on what is working and what needs change, and make sure you listen for specific language (“I need to buffer my deadlines by 24 hours”) rather than vague language (“I need to try harder to meet deadlines”) when creating action plans based on what was learned.

This is just an example of how Managers in organizations would use a Life Crafting framework—a coaching framework—for working with their teams. Coaches who are working with clients in a one-on-one capacity are using this same framework over the course of several months of coaching, with goals more oriented around the client’s personal desires for success.