The Carrot and the Stick
Gaining clarity and motivation can be a tricky task - as I'm sure many of us are already feeling with our new years resolutions 😱
Fortunately, you can get both with one simple method.
*We're going to go through the process with pen and paper - after we'll touch on how you can do this remotely.
At WorkVisible, we call this the Carrot and the Stick. It’s a simple process for teams and individuals to cut through the noise, get clear on what they need to do, and have a compelling vision to do it!
Here’s how it works:
Step 1: Create Your Anti-Vision (Your Personal or Team “Hell”)
Start with the negative. It might feel odd, but mapping out everything you DON'T want helps you understand what you do....
Plus it serves as a "stick" the version of reality you want to steer far away from.
How to Create Your Anti-Vision:
1. Grab a pen and some paper
2. Start Brain Dumping
Draw everything you DON'T want - what does your personal version of hell look like
Grab some post it's and start pulling out and labelling your anti-vision
Group your post it's
By the end you'll have something like this:
Step 2: Design Your Vision (Your “Heaven”)
Now for the FUN part—imagining what heaven would look like.
How would you like things to be?
Your vision is the future you’re striving for, full of alignment, impact, and satisfaction. It also serves as our "carrot".
To create this we follow the same process as before:
Draw everything you DO want - what does your personal version of heaven look like*
Grab some post it's and start pulling out and labelling your anti-vision
Where your post its are similar, group them together.
By the end you'll have something like:
*Having a few simple visual basics makes a huge difference when it comes to thinking and gaining clarity. If you want to level up this skill in just 90 minutes. Click here.
Step 3: Compare with Your Current Reality
Once you have a clear vision and anti-vision - the next step is to get clear on what you're doing NOW. What does the current situation look like?
Ask Yourself:
What are we doing right now?
What does our current situation look like?
You can include another drawing step here to visualise what the current reality looks like if you need to.
Putting it all together 🧩️
Now that we have our anti-vision, vision and current situation we can see them all at once
From here we can compare what we're doing now to our anti-vision(stick) and vision (carrot).
Identifying the things we need to do differently to go from our current situation to our vision
That's it! But what about remote?🤔
Now that you know the process (we highly recommend doing this method for yourself to get some clarity and get used to the flow) but what about remote?
How do we approach that?
You can run it the exact same way using a digital whiteboard.
Guide everyone through the steps. Have everyone draw on paper and then upload their work into the digital whiteboard and use digital post it's.
While this takes a little bit longer, it actually works surprisingly well. Plus the drawing sections give everyone a welcome break from the screen. Reducing screen fatigue and keeping the energy up!
