RETURN ON EXPERIENCE:
TURNING PAST PERFORMANCE INTO FUTURE SUCCESS

Chapter One

The Intelligent Outcome:
Starting with Success in Mind

In order to generate a positive Return on Experience, you need to know what kind of experience you want. You need a well-defined outcome. Chapter 1 introduces The Intelligent Outcome^TM as the successor to the standard S.M.A.R.T. goals model taught in business schools. Real-life examples show The Intelligent Outcome in action as clients use the model’s key questions and criteria to clarify a range of objectives. Ashley, the high-tech executive who felt “terrified” of speaking in public, is introduced as the book’s running character. A self-work exercise at the end of the chapter coaches readers through the creation of a written Intelligent Outcome statement, which is then taken through the ROX model.

Chapter Two
ROX 1
Tapping the Power of Direct Experience

Principle: All experience is present experience.
Question: “When have I  experienced that?”
Process: Tap into the memory of a prior success.
Return on Experience at ROX 1:  Self-Empowerment

Chapter 2 makes the neuroscientific case for Experiential Intelligence-the lifetime wisdom that a person can tap through the power of direct experience. Past successes that people may have deleted, distorted, or dismissed as flukes still remain in tact in their central nervous system. Those successes can be accessed and re-experienced in the present moment. Readers learn how to retrieve relevant experiences through the ROX 1 self-work exercise, as well as through the examples of Ashley and other clients. The chapter covers:

• The importance of self-modeling (vs. role modeling)
• What to do when a relevant memory doesn’t immediately arise
• The Six Types of Direct Experience
• The Three Magic Questions that unleash the power of direct experience

Chapter Three
ROX 2
Translating Experience into Knowledge

Principle: Experience contains the clues to success.
Question: “How did I do that?”
Process: Translate past experience into know-how
Return on Experience at ROX 2:  Self-Knowledge

Chapter 3 begins the process of translating past experiences into templates for future action. As the book points out, every experience has structure-even the seemingly seamless state of flow. Triumphs that may have seemed like flukes or strokes of luck are actually the result of an orderly, repeatable success process. The structure of an experience is revealed as people move one step down the Success Learning Ladder from the level of unconscious competence (flowing) to conscious competence (knowing). After watching Ashley translate a long-forgotten public speaking success into a series of steps, readers will learn how to do the same for themselves through the ROX 2 self-work exercise.

Chapter Four
ROX 3
Transferring Knowledge to Now

Principle: Success is versatile.
Question: “How can I apply that now?”
Process: Transfer knowledge to the current context in the form of a success strategy
Return on Experience at ROX 3:  Mindful Action

Chapter 4 brings the power of prior experience to bear on the current situation, as readers learn how to re-engineer their own success. When Ashley compared her past and present public speaking experiences side-by-side, she discovered very few differences between the process she used to create confidence versus her process for creating fear. Basically, she zigged when she should have zagged. With that insight, she now knew exactly what to do next.

Even successes from very different contexts contain information that can be adapted and used again. Ellen, a self-described “computer geek,” discovered how to liven up her training seminars by modeling the ways in which she makes children’s Bible study classes fun. Deanna, a diminutive legal researcher who virtually disappeared behind the stacks of books and briefings on her desk, broke through her clutter habit by following the “three-item rule” she uses to keep her kitchen nice and neat. A lifelong learner named Gary went from being a couch potato to an exercise enthusiast by listening to books on tape during his workouts  As the chapter’s many examples attest, content trumps context every time.

Chapter 5
ROX 4
Transforming Results through Experience

Principle: Success is a practice.
Question: “What results am I getting?”
Process: Transform results by comparing what you’re getting with what you want, and adjusting course as needed.
Return on Experience at ROX 4:  Desired Results

Chapter 5 invites readers to use the complete ROX model to accomplish their Intelligent Outcome. As the fourth ROX principle states: “Success is a practice.” It’s a process of taking action, noticing the results, and either staying or changing the course until the desired result is achieved. Being non-linear, the ROX model allows readers to loop back to any previous level for additional guidance, just as Ashley went back to ROX 1 the day before her big convention speech.

Having already broken through her stage fright and adopted a new success strategy, Ashley now found herself bumping up against an eleventh-hour fear-not a fear about speaking in public (which was gone). Rather, a fear about speaking up on the panel discussion after her speech. Believing that “it’s rude to interrupt,” Ashley feared that she would sit silently on her hands while the other speakers fielded the audience’s questions. Taking her back to the Intelligent Outcome model, I asked Ashley what she wanted now.

“I want to be able to interrupt without being rude,” she replied.

When had Ashley interrupted without being rude [ROX 1]?  “Never,” she insisted. Rudeness conflicted with her self-image. Fortunately, as Chapter 2 explained, the past experience that a person taps need not be a mirror image of the desired one. The ROX model offers a choice of six different types of experiences that can be tapped and mined for clues. When prompted, Ashley was able to remember a time when her boss interrupted another speaker without being rude. After adapting the boss’s success strategy to suit her own style, Ashley managed at the convention to not only interrupt a fellow panelist while maintaining rapport, but also to bring the speaker’s wandering narrative back to the questioner’s point. The applause that erupted in appreciation changed Ashley’s self-image as a speaker for good.

Chapter 6
ROX 5
Transmitting Wisdom through Questions

Principle: Success inspires success.
Question: “How can I help you?”
Process: Transmit the ROX model to others through questions
Return on Experience at ROX 5:  Leadership

Great leaders inspire greatness not by telling people what to do, but by asking the key coaching questions that help them discover how to do-it-themselves. At ROX 5, the focus shifts from self to others as readers learn how to use both the Intelligent Outcome and ROX models in a leadership role.

The book’s final chapter includes a collection of “Profiles in Coaching” vignettes, which show business leaders, sales representatives, managers, coaches, consultants, therapists, trainers, and people from various walks of life, coaching each other through a range of issues using the ROX model. At ROX 5, Ashley is shown in a leadership role coaching an under-performing employee. As a result of their coaching, the employee earns a long-denied promotion, Ashley reaches a new level of success as a leader, and the book comes full circle with a coaching exercise that helps readers discover how to help other people through the power of direct experience.

Copyright 2009, Carol Goldsmith, The Discovery Coach