Benji and Nadine talk about how the ACT Matrix enables coaches to help their clients move towards what truly matters, and to align their deepest values with their professional lives. Here is an extract of their conversation, which you can watch in full in the video.
Benji: Since 2009, I’ve been using a tool which is a way of delivering ACT and is known as the ACT Matrix. It’s a simple and intuitive tool we can share with our clients. It’s like a dashboard which we can use in our interventions, but it is also effective in the various domains of our lives. It will help us know where we are in terms of what matters, the obstacles that can show up, and what we do in reaction to those obstacles. It also helps us to become the person we would like to be.
Nadine: Sometimes we ask our clients to bring some personal examples of situations they are in, and the ACT Matrix increases our ability to know what is relevant, and it also supports observation. I’ve seen people become much more quickly aware of what is going on for them, what are their patterns of behaviour, what triggers them, and how they react. The Matrix gives them a way to know more quickly how to respond, rather than react. One of my clients named it ‘the thriving diagram’.
Benji: There are a number of buzz phrases in the organizational world, such as ‘finding meaning’, or ‘resonant leadership’, but it’s actually extremely difficult to align our deepest values with what we do in our professional work and in the wider environment. As long as this alignment doesn’t happen, then in a way we’re not really present with what we are doing professionally, and this is where we get into all sorts of difficulties, and where our work can lack meaning.
Central to our approach is this focus on what really matters – how to be fully ourselves in our professional lives, but also in this thing we call life. ACT starts, continues and ends with this, and everything else is organized around it. What truly matters, what I can do to move towards what truly matters, what I can do when things stand in the way, and what works and doesn’t work – for me, these are really the key, and it’s why ACT has so much to give to the coaching world.
Register for the ACT and Coaching workshop with Benji Schoendorff and Nadine Hemmer. The workshop, which explores how you and your executive coaching clients can develop emotional and behavioural agility, takes place online on 25 April and 3-4 May 2022. This experiential workshop, accredited by ICF, will enhance your understanding of the ACT approach and help integrate it into your professional practice.