Consultants have their own language. One of my favorite consulting terms is “shaping new work” or “shaping new opportunities.” This was the term we used for marketing activities that were very tactical in nature and occurred through relationships with either existing or potential clients. What I love about this phrase is the imagery it conjures of a sculptor shaping a piece of pottery.

I want to unpack the components that comprise the effort of shaping opportunities because I think it holds something incredibly useful for all of us, no matter what our career or role. But first, some background behind the word “shaping.”

Background

The word, “shaping,” comes from the field of psychology. It describes the process of training a learned behavior that would not normally occur, for example, training a dog to sit.

Pay close attention this – shaping has a desired outcome in mind that, without some sort of external influence, would not normally occur. Shaping conveys that there is both the person doing the shaping and the thing being shaped. 

In the early 2000’s, marketing experts began to use the word, “shaping,” to highlight the distinction between being market driven and driving markets. 

“Market driven refers to a business orientation that is based on understanding and reacting to the preferences and behaviors of players within a given market structure. Driving markets, on the other hand, implies influencing the structure of the market and/or the behavior(s) of market players in a direction that enhances the competitive position of the business.” (Jaworski, Kohli, & Sahay, 2000)

Today, shaping is used in a variety of ways, from shaping work to shaping the future.

What goes into shaping an opportunity?

There are a number of factors that go into shaping opportunities. Here are a few:

• The strength of the relationships you have built and your understanding of what matters to others

• Your ability to notice opportunities around you

• Your ability to plan for multiple scenarios and mitigate risks

• How you show up to work; who you are being; what mindset you bring

• Your ability to communicate, influence, persuade, pitch, and enroll others

• Your ability to cast the vision and think strategically

Why does this matter to you? 

The implications of this in our careers and day-to-day jobs is enormous. We are shaping opportunities into outcomes daily, whether or not we are aware of it. Let’s look at a few examples.

From my own professional experience, I worked on-site at the same client for five years. I built relationships with key decision makers. I listened deeply to them to understand their needs, their perspectives, and their vision. They trusted me. And when they described their needs, often, I saw a way our firm could support them. I was positioned as a trusted advisor and could suggest the right support that would allow them to accomplish their objectives. I had shaped new work that helped the client meet their goals and helped our firm win new work.

Look at the example of the employee who shapes an opportunity to take on new responsibilities. They have demonstrated their reliability to do excellent work with their existing workload. Their manager clearly trusts them. If the manager is good, they recognize talent when they see it and know how to grow and develop talent. If the manager is not tuned into developing people, then the employee will have to be more proactive in advocating for themselves and convince the manager to give them new responsibilities. Either way, the employee has shaped their outcome of increased responsibility by how they show up. 

And consider a third example of shaping your work products and projects. You bring your skills, expertise, and ideas to impact the outcome of your work products. If you are collaborating on the effort, your ability to work with others and leverage diversity of thought to make an impact. Every day, you are shaping your work, your relationships, and your outcomes.

What about when something doesn’t go your way? Does it still hold that you shaped that outcome? At the very least, you co-created it. Consider the employee who doesn’t get the promotion. No matter how solid their performance, there is something about the way they show up for work that made someone doubt they could handle the new title and its responsibilities, or maybe deep down, they have a fear of their own success and hold themselves back in ways they don’t even know. Or what about the person who loses a sale? There is likely something in how they showed up for the client that made the client go in another direction. We don’t like to take ownership of these things. It’s much easier to shift the blame to the other party. But if we’re going to take credit for shaping the things that go well, we need to acknowledge that we at least helped shape the things that don’t go so well too. And there’s always a lesson here for us as we move forward.

Leaning into your influence to shape opportunities

How can you be more intentional about shaping the opportunities around you? Here are some questions for you to consider:

1. What problems do I see that are actually opportunities?

2. How well am I listening to my colleagues/my manager/my clients? Do I truly understand their perspective?

3. Who am I being at work?

4. What could I do more of, or less of, in order to more strategically shape opportunities around me?

5. What competing commitments do I have that keep me from creating the outcomes I want?

We have incredible ability to shape opportunities to generate outcomes. If we aren’t intentional about pursuing these, they go untapped. What opportunities are you missing, and how can you begin to shape more of them?