🤫 Whisper #13: What's top of mind?
Make no assumptions about what is keeping others awake at night.
Hey, it’s 📣 Coach Erika! Welcome to a 🔒 subscriber-only edition🔒 of The Career Whispers. Each week, I tackle reader questions about tech careers: how to get one, how to navigate them, and how to grow and thrive in your role.
A great deal of research and expertise goes into every post on The Career Whispers, and I hope you’ll spend the two-latte equivalent to feed your brain and upgrade your subscription. If you do, you’ll get access to this and all 3-7 monthly TCW posts, across these thoughtfully crafted career experimentation series:
JOB SEARCH DIARIES
THE WEEKLY WHISPER
DEBUGGING YOUR JOB SEARCH
MVIP (MINIMUM VIABLE INTERVIEW PREP)
CLEVER GUERRILLA
BONUS EDITIONS and more (see all the paid subscriber benefits here)
Let’s dive in ↓
Whisper #13
What's top of mind?
This week's Whisper comes from a fantastic book called The Coaching Habit. The book proposes 7 different questions to help you become a better coach for others.
This question is all about starting conversations with a pressure release valve.
We've all been in meetings where the conversation is going as planned, but we're distracted by something bigger playing out in the foreground of our minds. Some examples:
Your VP is talking about long-term business planning when there's a massive, urgent, pants-on-fire production bug happening right now that you can’t get off your mind
Your colleague wants to meet about a near-term challenge when there’s a fatal flaw in the broader approach that you can’t unsee (or stop thinking about)
You’re having your standard business-as-usual 1:1 with your manager, but you just heard a rumor about layoffs and you’re in a panic because you took a leave of absence last year or recently challenged a VP in a public meeting.
Maybe you’re dealing with overwhelming family or health issues, and no one around you even knows.
This coaching question is about starting conversations to allow urgent distractions to be heard and acknowledged before diving into the set agenda.