Unfinished II: The accomplished unfinisher

Okay, this is me coming back to reflect-as-i-write about unfinishing.  I need to be clear right away this is not with the intention of tidying up some unfinished business!  I mean, the thought would be to completely miss the point.  Then again, perhaps not?!  Last time I wrote about this topic was in the context of thinking about finishing in the creative context.  While writing I shared how I had described myself as an ‘accomplished unfinisher’ in a LinkedIn conversation started by Gayle.  The phrase came naturally, and I felt a good fit with it, yet I am not sure if it is true, perhaps not even sure what I really meant.  This little essay is about exploring whether or not I am deceiving myself when identifying as an ‘accomplished unfinisher’, to help me gain greater clarity of understanding, and to invite you to think if there are any reflections prompted for you. 

Perhaps the best place to start is thinking why finishing might be so important to us.  What part does physiology play in this?  What about psychology….and sociology?  My point being are we ‘wired’ or ‘habituated’ or ‘conditioned’ to focus on finishing?

Perhaps yes.  Take cortisol for example, that hormone/ neurotransmitter so many people are talking about from the perspective of wanting to reduce it.  Who isn’t offering a cortisol detox these days!!  Sure, having too much cortisol for too long a period is responsible for a distress response.  However, it is also a player in our eustress response, meaning having the right level of alertness to achieve tasks well (rather than the alarm state of distress.  Hans Selye was the first to distinguish stress into good = eustress and bad = distress.  Despite his attempt to offer a balanced view on stress the world has largely concentrated on the Mr Hyde of this Jekyll and Hyde pair

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When we are functioning well cortisol levels follow our diurnal cycle and we start the day with higher levels of cortisol to give us the va-va-voom to get on with our tasks.  As we achieve them cortisol levels reduce.  Right away we have a cause-and-effect relationship between ‘ticking things of our list’ and reducing cortisol levels to the point where distress is less likely.  Taking that one step further you can reach the conclusion ‘finishing is good for our health’.

In terms of habituation this also seems to be something encouraging the notion of finishing being good.  Watch any young child in exploratory mode and you will see them try this and that in their play, apparently constantly starting up this train of thought or that activity.  When old enough to play with pens and paper numerous creations are started and disposed of.  To the adult eye it seems that they are not good finishers yet perhaps in their own mind they have a rather different definition of finishing, or more likely no preconception that finishing = good.  What is certainly true is the further they progress through life the more overt the rewards become for finishing something, be that an activity, their food, and so on.  The importance of finishing becomes habituated, something reinforced throughout formal education with homework to finish and exams signifying finishing a particular period of study.

Then comes the expectation of others when we start to engage collaboratively in social and professional situations.  We have dependency on others finishing what they say they are going to finish, and we have people depending on us.  Potent emotions like trust, guilt and shame start to influence our relationships with others in connection with our experience of how reliable they are, amongst other things, in finishing what they say they are going to do.

Crikey, that’s all pretty potent in suggesting that finishing is something which is

a)     difficult to break free from and

b)     the consequences of breaking free are potentially damaging to an individual and their relationships.

So why is it that I am still positively drawn towards being ‘an accomplished unfinisher’; because I most definitely am.

I wonder if this is simply a language thing.  I say this because at the same time as being an ‘accomplished unfinisher’ I am someone who puts a high priority on first setting expectations, and then meeting them.  This is as important in my engagement and collaboration with others as it is for myself.  If I commit to doing something I will either do it or I will expect to have a dialogue of some sort to explore the learning from the fact that I have not.  Within this dialogue there would be elements of responsibility and accountability.  Despite the possibility of interpreting this as finishing I don’t see it that way, identifying this much more powerfully as fulfilling a commitment.  A quotation I really like, I think from Philip Sandahl, is ‘always empower the person standing on the critical path’.  To me this means fulfil your commitments to empower other people to fulfil theirs, particularly when theirs’ have a dependency on yours.

'Why this picture?' you might ask. It's an example of the benefits of unfinishing! In this case a church in the Spanish town of Ronda, which is unfinished (see the walls in mid picture). In times gone by regional churches would pay taxes to their wealthier city based dioceses. The taxes were only levied on completed buildings, so many churches remained strategically unfinished!

I am thinking about my relationship with finishing and how it has evolved in my time as a coach.  I remember in the early days I did find it quite difficult to construct a good end to a coaching partnership.  Looking back, I realise the reason for this was a sense of ending, of finishing, which in this context I found harder to process.  I suspect there were at least three factors at play here.  I have little doubt that my ego had a quiet part in it because early on in my coaching I was aware of my developing skills and the value I could bring by applying them.  Perhaps I had a quiet voice telling myself the story of the value of my ‘contribution’, and how it could go on in perpetuity.  Given this the coaching partnership should go on, right?!  Another small voice was saying surely my coachee’s life was better with my ongoing support! Yet another part of me was also aware that longer coaching relationships were better for business!

As my coaching practice developed, I very quickly reframed all of these views.  A successful coaching business is one with a high throughput of clients each of whom experience value from their short engagement in coaching.  In truth I have always been aware and at ease with my clients being much, much better at managing their life in the long term than I could ever be.  In the short term, they might need a sense check with a coach which gives their thinking and feeling a nudge.  Here’s the rub though.  The impact of this nudge has the potential to last way, way beyond the end of a coaching relationship.  So, a good coaching partnership will typically come to an end after a short time and yet the value of coaching goes on, the process is unfinished, and entirely in the hands of the coachee.  Now, at the conclusion of all my partnerships I leave them with unfinished business, and that’s the way it should be.  I’m good at what I do too, accomplished if you like, so putting the two together I arrive at ‘accomplished unfinisher’.

As a solopreneur I am aware of another difference in relation to how I engage with my list of tasks.  Nowadays I keep a single list of tasks in a A5 notebook.  Everything goes in there now, from the relatively small and ‘quick fix’ items up to prompts to design a leadership programme which might entail several weeks’ work.  I confess I do tick things off when they are complete and am aware sometimes of a sense of satisfaction in doing so.  My inner finisher putting its head about the parapet you might say.  Yep, alright you’ve caught me out.  I haven’t been able to completely shift the sense of finishing being important.  However, when I get towards ticking everything off on that list the feelings I get is much more dramatic.  It borders on dread and yes, the feeling is a powerful one.  I am happier knowing that I have lots of different things to do, with equal emphasis on ‘lots’ and ‘different’.  I am happy knowing that my work and play is not finished.  It is true to say that as Director of my own company a fully ticked off list implies a short pipeline of work, and I do find that quite challenging. 

More generally though I simply like to know that my work and play is unfinished as I find this a more inviting way to embrace a future full of possibility and learning.  ‘Becoming is better than being’ and ‘not there……yet’ are a couple of Carol Dweck quotations that seem to sit well here.  I really am happy with being perpetually ‘not there….yet’!

A quick side bar note here.  Something that came up in a recent coaching conversation.  I was coaching a member of the Institute of Chartered Foresters the other day.  Our conversation on one level was one of natural ecosystems and man-made influence on our planet.  On another level it was about the purpose and motivation of my coachee partner.  I threw out the question, ‘what was it like to be in the business of planting hectares of trees, many of which would not reach maturity in a typical career lifetime?  What was it like to feel a sense of not being finishing your work?’  It is not appropriate to report on how the conversation unfolded yet my sense is it went in an interesting direction for the client and was an exploration of the difference between finishing and unfinishing.

Another aspect I am aware of in my identity as an ‘accomplished unfinisher’ relates to my age.  I like to think I’m youthful in outlook and reasonable fit, yet I am no spring chicken.  I am nearer the conclusion of my life than to my birth.  This is not being maudlin, just a simple truth for a 60-year-old.  You are likely ahead of me in realising that I am thinking of that ‘final finish’ and following on behind these reflections is, what will my legacy be?

I remember when I first started out on my career, I was a research chemist and when asked what my motivation was for my job I would say ‘I want to have a chemical reaction or process named after me’.  Like the Grignard reagent, or the Haber process, there would be a Hinks something-or-other.  After I said this enough times, I started to wonder if it was really something that I wanted, and if so why?  Looking back, I think it was about legacy for me, even as a 25 year old early career scientist.  I was more interested in having something to be remembered by, rather than status in the here and now. 

It feels a bit absurd telling this story now, yet it is necessary to contrast this perspective from the younger me with what I feel about legacy now.  Think back to what I was saying a minute ago about all my coaching partnerships being unfinished.  Each of my many hundreds of clients have an ongoing process which they kick started with the thinking and feeling done in our coaching partnership.  Almost as soon as it was kick started there would have been a ‘mixing’ with all the other influences each person has experienced since;  the original thinking being diluted and becoming more distant as time passes but never gone, never finished.  The words of another recent client which have stayed with me without fading at all, have informed part of this thinking:  ‘just because I don’t remember it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist within me, or I have not been thoughtful about it’.  This phrase captures so much of importance for me of the influence of all life’s experiences, and how entwined they become, however much they might dilute each other.

When thinking of legacy I enjoy the probability of my clients sharing what has interested them in our coaching partnership when in conversation with others.  Perhaps even more significant is how the way they lead and influence changes on the back of their coaching experience.  Their words and actions will be re-interpreted, perhaps re-incarnated, in the minds of each person they interact with.  Imagine this happening across time, between generations; reincarnations of that original thinking and feeling, diluted by the experience of each person but never disappearing altogether, never ‘finishing’.  Almost homeopathic; in fact.  I find it interesting I mention homeopathy and reincarnation in this narrative as I like the idea of both, yet cannot believe fully in either.

Despite being sure there are others I could describe I want to close out with a final strand exploring the legitimacy of my sense of being an ‘accomplished unfinisher’.  It’s something with is in stark contrast to me wanting a chemical reaction named after me as my legacy from my period as a research chemist.  Now if my mind turns to legacy from my time as a coach, I am completely uninterested in having my name connected to it at any stage of the fanciful process of entwining and dilution I outlined above;  no desire whatsoever.  This stems from being influenced by another quotation which has remained right up there in my consciousness ever since I heard it a long time ago.  It comes from Harry Truman, US president from yesteryear.  He said, ‘You can create anything in life, provided you don’t mind who takes the credit’.  Letting the meaning of that settle in me provided a sense of release that surprised me.  That’s another story perhaps!  For now, let’s draw to a close on the story of my identity as, amongst other things, an ‘accomplished unfinisher’.  I reckon it would be fitting to draw this to a close by……………….