What comes next?
The quiz. Can you answer this questions for yourself 25 times in a row? Try it right now.
The answers.
- Perhaps you start with I get up and go to work. (what comes next?)
- I finish off the team project report. (what comes next?)
- I talk with my boss about future projects (what comes next?)
The key. Now here is the key. I don’t want you to create a listless list of what comes next?, I want you to feel happy with your 25 responses. You need to feel engaged with the answer to what comes next?
Start over. If you are not engaged you need to start again at the point where you didn’t like or feel engaged with your response to what comes next? If you don’t feel engaged with getting up and going to work (the very first one in our sample list) you need to determine what has to change so that you will be pleased with what comes next?
Keith Johnstone’s teaching. I first learned the power of this question working with Keith Johnstone for 10 days in Calgary. Keith is one of the most influential contributors to improvisation. He had us do this exercise countless times over the 10 days and insisted that we should be pleased with what comes next and if we are not pleased with it, we should say no. Although this was used as an approach to improvisation and involved work with partners or groups, I realized it was a great tool to improvise and plan your own career and life.
On course or off course? If you can answer the question 25 times in a row and feel engaged with each answer, I suggest you have an excellent career and work direction and I would encourage you to stay on the path. If you struggle with the response to the very first question I encourage you to get busy working on your career development.
Do it now? Eventually, in life, there will be a time when we cannot answer what comes next? Don’t wait until it is too late to ensure you are on the right path or to make changes during your last moments. Do it now, while you can enhance, change, foster, or transform your responses and your level of engagement in your own career.
An organization employee engagement tool. In addition, organizations should think of the people in the organization always asking that question and do whatever it can to ensure employees have a positive response to what comes next at work.
Don’t be listless start your list of 25. So with no more delay, sit down now and see if you can create 25 positive responses in a row to what comes next in your life.
David this is a great question. When I am in project management mode or process re-engineering mode, this question is almost overused but with great purpose. In any workflow, what does come next is critical to understanding where there are improvement possibilities.
For our own personal lives, if we don’t know what comes next, then it is quite possible we could be doing the wrong thing or going the wrong way.
This is a valuable exercise because it requires clarity. And when I can clearly articulate what comes next, I’ll be able to make it happen.
Good article David. I would add something to it, namely that the answer to the question does not necessarily have to be within the realm of current reality but may as well lie outside of it. I guess you hint at that when you say one needs to feel engaged with the answer. That way it could turn out to be a profound, life changing tool for all of those people who feel stuck in their situation. If you have difficulty answering the first ‘what comes next?’ question the just go on an imaginary ride through a marvelous string of ‘what comes next’ answers and then make a new one with all the ‘what comes next?’ answers to make the first one a reality.
What comes next? A better life!