We hope you found the framework and materials from our previous blog post helpful.

Did using the framework spark any insights for you? We’d love to know about it, if so!

The COPE framework is designed to allow you ‘walk around a situation’: To take a structured look at a difficult or complex decision or problem from various Mindsets, thereby generating a more rounded set of potential solutions.

This is all well and good – but the proof of this is in its implementation! Outstanding performance requires both planning AND execution to be of a high standard – which is where the FLEX framework comes in. The slide below gives an overview…

Extraversion and Agreeableness

FLEX combines two of the Big 5 factors of personality – Extraversion and Agreeableness. As with the COPE framework, we will each gravitate towards some parts of the framework, and less towards others. 

What resonates for you? What do you think your preferred style might be? What might be the preferred style of others you interact with? Knowing one’s own preferred style is a start point – but context is everything. 

Perhaps you’ve experienced a situation where others have got impatient with the amount of detail you’ve gone into, feeling it unnecessary? 

Or a time when you’ve been trying to drive things forward, but feel others are dragging their feet?

Maybe you have been perceived to be dragging your feet!

All of these are situations which may have their roots in strengths being overplayed – doing what is comfortable to us, rather than what the situation requires.

When under pressure, we become more wedded to our preferred, or ‘natural’ style (comfort zone?) and thus become more likely to lead with those behaviours, regardless of context. It becomes all about us!

The challenge is to ‘get ourselves out of the way’, and deliver the behaviours required of the situation – which may not be those which are most comfortable to us.

This is where knowing our own preferred styles (the start point) is important – but the development opportunity lies in learning to FLEX our behaviours when they are no longer proving effective for the context. This takes practice, and the patience to work through a little discomfort – but the results may be surprisingly rewarding.

FLEX Framework

As with the COPE framework before, the FLEX framework includes priming questions to help prompt the delivery of the different FLEX behavioural styles. You can download the PDF by clicking here.

We’d encourage you to try to use some of these (particularly those you gravitate away from!)  in your interactions and let us know how you go.

If you’re interested in having a full SpotlightPROFILE done for yourself, and/or your team, it’s a straightforward and intuitive process that can be done completely “virtually” – the online questionnaire takes around 10 minutes, with a follow-up “online call” of around an hour to debrief results.

We appreciate it is a challenging time right now. We are focused on being a positive resource for you and help where we can…

If you’d like to discuss this in more detail, please get in touch by emailing info@realhealthcaresolutions.co.uk

Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash