Training for Supervisors - Initial Reflection

Be careful about using these questions in a quick question and answer fashion. Although they appear to be a checklist of nine questions, they are not.

Look at training for supervisors as a journey. Or, perhaps a voyage. The nearby picture, by Thomas Cole (1842), is entitled The Voyage of Life – Youth. Displayed in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. it is one of four pieces reflecting the Voyage of Life.

Let each of the nine questions serve as a unique kind of curriculum which facilitates training for supervisors.

Treat each question as a dialogue opener to explore creating a more powerful future. Like the Youth in Cole's painting, the future is bright and uncharted ahead. Reflect on the answers that come from each starter question.

Once an answer is on the table for each question probe deeper to pinpoint honestly and realistically where things stand and where you can go.

Observe that each question ends with the phrase, this thing. Be specific about a course of action that you want to pursue. Once you have the specific item in mind replace the phrase this thing with the tangible item that describes the thing you want to pursue.

Training for Supervisors – Visualization

1 - What does the future look like when you are doing this thing?

2 - What time period, specifically, in the future are you doing this thing?

3 - What are the essential key words that describe your behavior when you are doing this thing?

Training for Supervisors – Execution

4 - What, specifically, do you need to do differently so that you can do this thing?

5 - What is in your way of doing this thing?

6 - What are the first three things you need to do in order to move toward this thing?

Training for Supervisors – Motivation

7 - What excuses do you need to confront in order to do this thing?

8 - What if none – not a single one – of your barriers or excuses were in your way of doing this thing?

9 - What powerful self-talk phrases will you tell yourself when you don’t feel like you have traction to move forward to do this thing?

Training for Supervisors – Upon Further Reflection

“The future turns out to be something that you make instead of find. It isn't waiting for your arrival, either with an arrest warrant or a band, nor is it any further away than the next sentence, the next best guess, the next sketch for the painting of a life portrait that might become a masterpiece. The future is an empty canvas or a blank sheet of paper, and if you have the courage of your own thought and your own observation, you can make of it what you will. ”

Lewis Lapham (born 1935); American Writer