Follow Through In Spite of the Two of You.
By Stan Tyler

A finch is building a nest outside my bedroom window. She’s been at it relentlessly for two weeks. If I worked like that for two weeks, the teller at my bank would be calling me “sir” instead of “next.”

With one eye staring over the edge of my pillow, I watch Ms. Finch, wondering what she has that I don’t have. She gets up earlier than I do, ok, one. She moves quickly. I can do that later this morning. She follows through with a singular focus as if she has no choice in the matter. I don’t recall anything like that.

I wonder if I’m the only living species on earth that chooses not to do what I know is best for me.

In their book, Follow Through, Steve Levinson and Pete Greider suggest that we have two guidance systems operating at the same time. Our intelligent guidance system moves us toward acts that assure our prosperity, while our primitive guidance system moves us to do only what is necessary to survive. The two don’t play together willingly.

Like me, many of my coaching clients are a little uncomfortable always doing what’s best for them and occasionally default to primitive guidance – just enough to get by. Some paint themselves into a corner with the bogus assumption that everyone else does follow-through better than they do. Each of us wrestles with intelligent and primitive guidance to some degree but for those of us pinned to the mat, here are some tools that may improve the cooperation of intelligent and primitive guidance.

Tool One: Bait and switch
My intelligent guidance tells me I must stop watching the bird, get out of bed and get to work. My primitive guidance tells me I’ve reached a pinnacle of survival in my comfortable bed – don’t move. I must get primitive guidance to cooperate with intelligent guidance to make sure I have a bed next month. I take a step-by-step approach and decide to sit up. Still comfortable. Now I decide walk to the bathroom. Close to the bed, no conflicts. I decide to get dressed and have breakfast. I love breakfast. The phone rings. I decide to answer the phone. It’s my client. I tell her I’ve decided to work today and she tells me that’s good because otherwise she’d find another coach. Primitive guidance kicks in. I begin to move like Ms. Finch. I arrange an appointment, finish getting ready for work, and off I go. Primitive guidance now supports intelligent guidance because step by step, I coaxed primitive guidance into a new survival mode.

Tool Two: External cues
A certain manager expects her associates to do their work without requiring encouragement or praise because that’s how she works. Primitive guidance tells her that everyone does what they have to do to survive. She also knows that encouragement and praise helps build strong performance because that’s how she operates when she’s coaching her soccer team. Intelligent guidance tells her that people perform better when they are appreciated and loved. It just doesn’t occur to her to use this technique at work with adults. So to help her remember to use encouragement and praise at work, she places a framed photo of her soccer team by her phone and a team jersey on the back of her office door. Now she entices her intelligent guidance to support her primitive guidance, profits soar and the company goes public.

Tool Three: The pit of fire
A man, who describes himself as frugal to a fault, uses his trait to grow his business. He asks his secretary to put a number of 10-dollar bills in an envelope labeled “cold calls.” His intelligent guidance tells him that he must make 10 cold calls each week to increase his income and he tells his secretary to ask him each day how many calls he has completed. For every call he makes she will give him a ten-dollar bill. Primitive guidance says no to the extra work. So, the man tells his secretary that for every call he has not made by 5:00 PM each Friday, she will put a ten-dollar bill into the paper shredder while he watches. This creative use of force threatens to pitch primitive guidance, accustomed to the habit of frugality, into the flames of death. Primitive guidance must survive. Start calling.

As I experiment with these tools, I find that my follow-through results and confidence improve. These tools and others trigger cooperation between your intelligent and primitive guidance systems by bringing them both into your awareness, making it easier to choose to do what you know is best. I would love to hear how such tools work for you.

Stan Tyler and his wife Patricia are professional coaches who work with business owners and individuals who want to design rich, full lives. Stan can be reached at stan@champions-edge.com.