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Toolkit series · episode 11

Values card sort

A prioritisation sitting. The coachee ranks a set of values. The result is a filter on goals and Future Design, not a poster for the fridge.

For: Career and executive coaches

Worked example: Graham Fielder, mid Waypoint programme, after Future Design and before applications.

Fictional composite for illustration. No real client data.

Walkthrough

Graham sorts. A few values rise. Two of them conflict — security and autonomy — which is the sitting. Roles that pay the mortgage and cage him fail the filter. The ranked set stays on the engagement as a reference, not as wallpaper.

  1. 1 · Sort, don’t discuss yet

    Let the ranking happen before the coach interprets. Talking during the sort turns it into people-pleasing.

    • The top five are not a brand. They are a constraint.
    • Ties are allowed. Forced ranking of everything is theatre.

  2. 2 · Name the collision

    Security vs autonomy is Graham’s collision. Career-transition work that ignores it will produce a job he leaves in 14 months.

    • Most useful sorts have a collision, not a tidy top three.
    • Do not resolve it for him in the sitting. Put it on the next one.

  3. 3 · Run goals through it

    Every live goal, and every Future Design goal, has to survive the ranked set. Ones that do not get dropped or rewritten.

    • If nothing is dropped, the sort was decorative.
    • Sponsors do not need the list. They need the goals that survived it.

Three insights

1

Values are a filter

A list on the wall changes nothing. A list that kills two goals is doing the work.

2

The collision is the session

Two high values that cannot both be fully met is the adult conversation. Harmony is a children’s sort.

3

Keep it attached to the engagement

A photo of cards on a table will not be there in week eight. The ranked set has to live with the goals.

50-minute sitting

  1. 0′+5m

    Contract

    This will constrain goals. If that is unwelcome, do not start.

  2. 5′+20m

    Silent sort

    Coach stays quiet. No leading questions during the ranking.

  3. 25′+15m

    Collision

    Name the two that fight. Stay there.

  4. 40′+10m

    Filter the goals

    Drop or rewrite at least one. If you cannot, the sort is not in use.

Keep a values sort on the engagement

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