Taking the Judgey Judgerson out of Assessments

by | Nov 1, 2019 | Bigger Game

Playing your Bigger Game – what does that even mean?
I recently told you about how I fell in love with a model for how to play big in work and life. So here’s a 
series of posts to help you get started, and possibly you will fall in love too.
What is the Bigger Game? How do you get on the board game and actually play?

Assessing your game on the go

We’ve all been trained to do critical analysis, of ourselves, of our work, of others. We get graded for every piece of work we do at school, how we interact socially, on our performance at work.
And the default mode is to determine whether it was good or bad, whether we are good or bad.

It sucks to be judged all the time. It. Just. Sucks.
Surely there is a better way.

No matter how positively we phrase our constructive criticism, most of it ends up to be a judgement. And judgements trigger a negativity spiral that is unhelpful and limits our creativity.

Does this mean that we need to be nice to each other all the time? Hell no.
Let me use gardening as an example.
If you’ve got a tree in the garden whose branches are hanging over the path, and you keep having to duck or get hit in the head, what do you do?

If this was a typical work situation, something like this would happen:

“well, you’re not performing as you should as a tree. You’ve made a mistake by growing this branch here. Bad tree! I’m not sure we can use a tree-like you here”.

I mean, if we talked to a tree that way, it would be insane! But we do this to ourselves and each other all the time.

Back to the real tree – what we would actually do

  • notice the branch is in the way
  • think about what would work better: cut the branch or use/make a different path
  • cut the branch (most probably)

No judgement. Just assessing the situation, and then taking it from there.

Now here’s Rick to explain the real power of ASSESS in your Bigger Game, and in life.

How do you use this square?
It’s incredibly simple and may seem like a subtle change in how you assess, but it is profound in its impact.
Head for this square when you feel the need to ask, β€œHow am I doing? Where am I, and where do I want to go?”

Try it out. Whatever action you set for yourself today, assess it this way.

Just ask yourself: how am I doing?

If you like what you see in this series and want to know more, then we have good news. The Bigger Game Event will be coming to Amsterdam in Feb 2020. For more updates and to be the first to know, join our mailing list.
Do you want to be on another list?
Maybe you want this list because it’s just about the Bigger Game. Dorothee and I will not be spamming you with other amazing offers. Just Bigger Game stuff.

SO WHAT WILL YOU GET?

  • Non-salesy: videos about playing your bigger game, FAQs, blog posts where we share stories and insights. Nice quick reads.
  • Salesy: the upcoming event. We want you to join us! So we will tell you about it, offer you first access to tickets, and early-bird specials. But that’s it. Nothing else to sell here. 

Don’t forget to sign up for our November 14th Webinar with Rick.

bigger game webinar with Rick Tamlyn

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