Bag O'Tricks

Have you looked to see what your bag of tricks includes? These are the tricks or traits you use to obtain a certain ideal, whether it is to persuade a specific audience (noting you may need to use different tricks, depending on the audience); resolving conflict; engaging stakeholders; or directing staff in a more pressured environment.

Sometimes we may wonder why we need to obtain a particular skill, after all you don’t need to be an expert in everything. But even if the skill is uncomfortable, it should still be placed in your bag of tricks, to be used when other tricks may not be working.

I recently got told (I don’t know, for the millionth time) that I am a little too hard on people and need to tone down and be more sensitive. Now I know it’s because I am working in a social policy space, where it is a lot softer than say an employment, justice and security. That said, I should learn the skills, not necessarily to change my behaviour going forward, but to use that as a trick in my future career, where a softer/softer approach is required. For many others, their bag of tricks requires, for want of a better phrase, to toughen up.

You should aim to have a very full bag of tricks. Whilst you may reuse some more than others, obtaining the skills is necessary, because having them in your bag, is better than not knowing what to do.

It may require doing the training that always seems the same and thus not something you pursue. But you should do the basics training, even at a senior level. Why? It’s like a movie. The first time, you might pick up the key plot and characters, however the second time, you see more of the small sub-plots and the third; well you have mastered the entire inner craftsman. However, if it’s been a awhile, you may have to watch the movie again and hopefully your brain jumps to the key and inner craft points more quickly. A detailed reminder even though the story is the same.

Exercise those tricks in your bag, otherwise you may pull them out and find that they are too dusty for use.