Asking these questions early and often makes anything we do better. Keep them simple or try the special editions below applied to settings of our lives and work.
Take a moment on your own, with your family, or with your team to set a course for….
…YOUR LIFE OR CAREER
This Life Course-Setting Compass has supporting prompts drawn from life coaching practices.
Keep it on your wall or in your journal and plan to return every month, season, and/or year.
…YOUR FAMILY
Try this Family Course-Setting Compass. Maybe kick off with a book or short video from the kids page.
As seen in this short video clip, our family does this at the start of the school year, calendar year, and summer vacation. We keep it up by our kitchen table so we can update our “experiment of the week.”
…YOUR CLASS
Start the school or calendar year with this Classroom Course-Setting Compass. Maybe kick off with a book or short video from the kids page.
In this short video clip you can see teacher Melissa Foley-Procko engaging students in their class experience.
…YOUR TEAM
This Team Course-Setting Compass has supporting prompts distilled from team and communication practices.
You can start when a team first forms—participants can draw observations from their experiences in other teams.
You can see Olin College design teams talking about their formative and check-in compasses from 2:20-3:30 in this video.
Image courtesy of Startup FIU
…YOUR ORGANIZATION
This Organization Course-Setting Compass has supporting prompts distilled from organizational practices from design thinking to strategic planning.
Our changing times mandate that we find powerful yet efficient and agile ways to revisit our plans often, drawing on the ears, eyes, minds, and hands of everyone involved in our organizations and offerings. Think of your evolving portfolio of observations, principles, ideas, and experiments—regularly informed by your people—as a powerful but lightweight way to see your strategy that can feed your more formal planning and processes.
…and reflACT on any experience
This ReflACTION Compass has prompts to spark productive reflection—or to reflACT—on any experience.
OK, reflACTION sounds cheesy—but reflection (e.g. on the left side of Innovators’ Compass) only has impact when it comes with action (e.g. the right side of the Compass). I use prompts like these for myself and participants at the end of workshops and classes.
Or, set your mini-Compass daily
In 1-3 minutes each morning, you can bring new meaning, clarity, and impact to your day. Use this Minute-a-Day Mini-Journal with a month of mini-compasses and a page of prompts. Or, just use a sticky note!