I get some great ideas from my clients. In a recent coaching conversation my client and I were strategizing about how to fire up an employee in his 60’s with about two years left before retirement who was slacking off.. I suggested he challenge the individual to make the choice to make his last two years his best two years. My client liked the idea. After pondering it for a moment he said,
“What if I were to invite him now to draft what he would like his final review to say, the one that will cover his last year of service?”
What an intriguing idea! I mean, we’ve all probably been asked, in some career or life planning exercise, to write out our desired obituary. This is what jumped into my mind when he asked his question.
Now that I’ve shared the idea with you, I’m going to tuck it in the back of my mind to use or suggest in the future.
This final performance review exercise really challenges the employee to make that clear choice about how he wants his ultimate work year to be. He can choose to go out on a high, to enhance the legacy he leaves behind, and give himself something to look back on with pride at his retirement party and in the years beyond.
And, if he elects not to take up my client’s challenge, he will not be able to avoid an awareness that he is making a different choice…to coast, doing the minimal acceptable, into his retirement.