Planet K2

new address for blog...

2009-05-05T20:13:00.002+01:00

come and visit us at our new blog home... http://planetk2.com/blog

hope to see you soon!

Elite Sales...

2009-04-25T08:59:00.002+01:00

Do you work with people in sales? You should really check out our elitesales performance system^® . We're getting some consistently wonderful reviews about this programme and the impact it's having on even the most hardened of sales professionals.

We love the idea of "earning your place on the team", just like you have to in a sports team, and we've built around this concept to help bring the psychology and mindset of the elite sports performer to the world of the even more competitive sales performer.

So, have you earned your place on your team recently? If you were being managed in the equivalent manner of a sports team, would your name be first on the team sheet? What can you do to be constantly upping your game while still performing consistently? By taking the philosophy from the Athlete at Work^® programme and adapting it for the unique challenges of sales, we've come up with a challenging, exciting and performance enhancing programme, which we'd love to share with as many people as possible!

A self-serving book recommendation!

2009-04-25T08:55:00.002+01:00

For any people interested in the psychology of sport... why not buy this lovely new book? http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470725745.html you'll see in there a contribution about our work within the GB Rowing team... go on, treat yourselves! (or buy it for someone who's studying in this area! might be a better option)

Team Pride

2009-04-09T08:37:00.003+01:00

Are you benefiting from these obvious, but powerful group dynamics? With the focus of feedback and development work, that we've seen, being upon "what people need to improve on", there's not much chance of extra pride washing around that teams can benefit from. In fact, quite the opposite - the majority of people feeling pretty insecure about what they've got to offer and waiting for someone "more informed" to offer solutions or take a lead. You really do reap what you sow when it comes feedback, team mindset and performance... so what are you doing this week to ensure that the Pride commodity is optimised within your teams?

There's probably a personal responsibility element here too and we'd suggest that each of you work out for yourself why you should feel proud of your performances. (Pretty sure Heather Small wrote a song lyric like that!). In lieu of someone else raising your pride for you, take the high performance approach, and raise your own pride as much as you can.

There is the old saying that pride comes before a fall... but better to benefit from the pride in the first place than to avoid becoming proud for fear of the health and safety implications. And of course, old sayings are there to be proved as complete nonsense and we'd certainly recommend that anything you focus on to make yourself proud is well grounded in reality and therefore does not lead to a falsely elevated view of yourself. Reality based pride can be nothing but a good thing - surely?

Time for the basics

2009-04-09T08:25:00.002+01:00

Reading this article from Harvard Business Review reminded us how important it is to ensure that you don't assume everyone is on the same page. Would an army go into battle without every member of the force having been given a clear understanding of the purpose and approach for the mission? In most cases, forces members will need to reflect back what they have heard to ensure understanding has been achieved also (see here).

So, why is the same level of understanding not achieved for missions within our world?

How much improvement can you get going forward simply from improving shared understanding? Give it a go and tell us about the results!

Teamwork...

2009-03-31T10:44:00.002+01:00

Your 8 best or your best 8?

Parallels nicely with our experience of helping to shape these mindsets, rather than simply observe them and comment on what is witnessed. Being focussed on "how do we need to be, as individuals and a crew?" is very different from simply observing "how are we?".

The Boat Race - A Perfect Crew? From Cambridge Ideas. from Cambridge University on Vimeo.

If you were only judged on one thing...

2009-03-31T09:09:00.003+01:00

so, for April you can only be judged on one thing... your colleagues will shape their view of you based around this one thing... your managers and leaders will identify your value to the business based upon this same one thing... people outside of the business will make their judgements of you on just this one factor... and most importantly, you will draw all of your confidence from this one, critical element of performance.

So, what is that one element of performance for you? What key variable do you want to focus 100% on? When all of your performance boils down to just one thing, how good can you make that quality? What can you do each day to become a little better at the crucial factor? Who can you get advice from that will help you raise your game? What questions will you ask of yourself and of your colleagues to make sure you're constantly delivering the best possible performance?

Choose carefully and see what you can learn about yourself by making your performance a very pure focus.

Be yourself...

2009-03-20T10:02:00.002Z

If you do a great job of developing your confidence because you;

1. know your strengths
2. value those strengths
3. know how to exploit those strengths consistently,

then it is very likely that you can keep asking a simple question of yourself in order to perform at your best

"how confident am I that I can be myself today?"

hopefully, everyone should always be 100% confident that they can be themselves, you just have to put in the ground work to make sure that being yourself means something powerful to you.

Challenging conditions...

2009-03-18T18:19:00.002Z

All of this blogging has been really useful for us. It's helped us work up a very focussed presentation that focusses on performing in challenging circumstances and the specific lessons that were learned in preparation for the Beijing Olympics. We've got some pretty simple and clear mindset messages that we think will really hit the mark for a lot of people right now.

If you're interested in hearing what we've got to say, then please don't hesitate to contact us. Julial@planetk2.com would be particularly delighted to hear from you!

The session we've designed takes about 2 hours maximum and has some clear and simple takes away messages for you. Go on, get in touch!

Spirited conversation

2009-03-15T18:05:00.003Z

I was out running today - well I say running, it's more a form of shuffling along where at certain points both feet are off the ground so it qualifies as running from a technical perspective...anyway, it was feeling tough and then i met someone I know who was cycling along the same road and she stayed and chatted to me for ten minutes while I shuffled along. My pace picked up and I felt good. Then off she sped and I was on my own again. One hour later and a man i've never met came up beside me as he was running with his dog - it looked as though the dog might be running with him if you know what I mean, but that's not the point. He chatted with me for a while and again i felt stronger and happier - and perhaps a bit faster.

In difficult times, it's too easy to forget the power of the human spirit to lift - connecting with energy giving people is so important when times are tough - my lesson is to make sure I'm an energy giver for someone tomorrow

the Athlete@Work Clinic

2009-03-15T11:52:00.002Z

We're holding an Open Programme of the Athlete at Work in London on April 28th and 29th (location to be confirmed, but likely to be the Hoxton Hotel). If you'd like to come along, please contact julial@planetk2.com to find out lots more about the programme. We've got a whole load of superb testimonials, that to be honest are so mindblowingly good, they seem made up, but they're real! So, if you want to see what other people have said about the programme, just ask Julia and she can show you and even put you in touch with the real people if you don't believe them!

One rule for one...

2009-03-13T09:08:00.003Z

We were chatting with someone the other day about how they've been having the same, somewhat unhelpful, approaches to nutrition and hydration at work for the last 20 years. Interestingly, there was no other element of their performance that was anything like the same as it was 20 years ago; technical skills had been changed radically, tactical requirements were now completely different due to new markets and new products, mentally their requirements had changed totally in terms of concentration demands and sources of confidence and their way of working had changed drastically due to IT and a whole host of other environmental changes. Funny then that they were using outdated, non-cutting edge approaches to fuelling the body and brain that was having to deliver a performance within this brave and ever changing new world. Now, no-one else out there would be guilty of the same willful underperformance, would they?

Winning....

2009-03-12T08:55:00.004Z

We're doing a lot of work with sales teams right now as they seek to thrive rather than just survive - and as you'd expect with sales teams, the concept of winning is coming up a lot. I think a lot about what winning means and when it's tough out there, when the attention is all on you, when the pressure is cranked up and when your competitors are just as hungry, the meaning of winning is put sharply into focus.

does winning mean beating your opponent - at one level I guess it does but so what? It's not as simplistic as that - referencing your sense of winning to the performance of others puts them in control, not you. Perhaps the real competition lies inside. Perhaps that's the real target, not the one with numbers on and upon which sales teams are often fixated.

If the real target was inside - was us, was about getting better at your job every day, about finding what we're capable of achieving, about discovering how great we can be at dealing with challenging conditions, then we're in control, the performance belongs to us and the journey never ends.

Focusing on the inside gives our opponents a different role too - we want them to be good so they can push us to new heights - we honour them and are grateful for their part in our journey. and how do we focus when the pressure's on, the expectations are high and the fear of failure strong? In the words of Cathy Freeman on that iconic Monday at the Sydney games, just "do what you know." Simple.

Microsoft Office...

2009-03-02T19:48:00.004Z

... is apparently a very good place to work indeed (if you use some criteria we like!).

In their recent advert about ideas, or keeping it weird, the Microsoft advert states how they work on keeping it human and keeping it real, in the workplace. The advert goes on to say how, "you have to have an environment where people are comfortable sharing ideas. Anything we're working on has to be out in the open, where anybody can see it and feel they can build on it... so we do everything possible to keep people as connected as possible and put about as much work into the culture as you would in the products that you've created".

It's interesting to not attention being paid to the value add of culture and connectedness. This is very much "process" AND "outcome" thinking working together - get the human inputs right and focussed on allowing the talent to be free of unnecessary noise and the results that you're after are more likely to be delivered more consistently and more effectively. Within highly competitive markets AND in an environment that is making it tough to perform, it becomes even more important to focus on the human variables that it's clear make a difference to performance. Make sure that people have a real sense of control over their performance - how they do things and when they do them. Make sure people recognise how their role is valued by the organisation and absolutely essential to the success of everybody. Keep people focused on building on each other's work and knowing how the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Control, Confidence and Connectedness are things we talk about ad infinitum and now, more than ever, the businesses that optimise these three elements of motivation will really differentiate themselves from the competition.

Critical Day Focus...

2009-02-24T18:03:00.004Z

So, just before the Olympics, we were chatting with some of the athletes about the opportunities still left to mentally sharpen up and get the most out of the remaining preparation days. We challenged them to answer the following:

"If out of all of the days you've had to prepare for Beijing, you knew that tomorrow was the critical day to get right in determining your success in China, what difference would that make to how you approached tomorrow?"

If there was a difference that would occur, then it was clear that the absolutely focused, winning mindset was not 100% present every day. How low below that critical day focus could they afford to drop and still feel like they were optimising preparation? How could they maintain that clarity of focus going forward, without pushing too far and making everything seem critically important and thus crank the pressure up too much? How could they learn from what they'd do differently to help extract some extra benefit from the count up to the actual critical day of their final?

The question really focused them in to help make some important choices and stay in control of preparation - choosing to make it the best that it could be and using pressure positively.

So, does a critical day focus do anything for how you might do things differently?

Are you on our mailing list...

2009-02-24T12:41:00.003Z

... and would you like to be? Do you know anyone who you think would like the kind of stuff we write?

We have a regular newsletter that comes out to our subscribers and is brief, punchy and performance focused. We also send around our thoughts from time to time in a more structure 1-sider of A4... so if you want to be included on our distribution list, then please drop a line through to Julial@planetk2.com with the subject title "write to me please".

We'll also keep you informed of events that we have on if you write to us so that you can see how we bring all of our stuff to life when we're not writing about performance.

If you had a coach...

2009-02-22T11:04:00.002Z

and we mean a coach like the athletes we work with. With such a coach, they would be observing your performances and preparation and giving you feedback both during and after your moments of engagement. They'd be reinforcing good stuff, pointing out things to check, highlighting problems to work on and generally being supportive.

So... if you had one of these coaches with you throughout your working day, what would you want them to focus on? How would you make sure you benefited from having someone there to be your constant set of performance eyes and ears? It's worth spending a few minutes thinking this through and then working out how you can get these same benefits by becoming more aware of yourself as a performer and "watching" yourself while you perform and prepare and then asking yourself some tough questions at appropriate moments through the day.

The constant support of someone who's job it is to make you better would be a great thing to have... and in lieu of getting Sir Alex to come in and work for you, you'd better think about whether you're coaching yourself in the best way possible! What are you going to teach yourself today?

Performance...

2009-02-18T15:28:00.003Z

We often ask our clients what performance means, before we tell them how we define it. Typically performance gets confused with results and targets and measurement of end points. We often get people to think about performance from the point of view of a performance at the theatre, which people quickly see is a whole series of scenes, acts, people playing their part and the delivery of a performance one step at a time. Importantly, at the theatre, there is a script that underpins the whole performance. This script is a guideline upon which the actors have to bring their own interpretations and emphases. Personalising the script and interpreting it in the right way is a crucial thing for any performance. Even though you know what the end of your performance needs to look like, do you spend the same quality of time becoming equally intimate with your personal script that you need to bring to life to maximise the chances of delivering the result?

Performance is a combination of processes and outcomes and you need to become equally obsessed with both of those elements if you're going to constantly grow and develop in any role you have... want to know more, then just send us an email at hello@planetk2.com.

Recalibrate your risks?

2009-02-12T21:12:00.005Z

Risks you can afford to take - Risks you can not afford to take - Risks you can afford not to take - Risks you can not afford not to take...

Four different kinds of risks... and do those risks look very different in the current climate? Risks that you could previously afford not to take might now need taking... Risks that you'd previously not think twice about taking - where do they fit into your current plans and performance?

Just like all elite performers, keep checking the fundamentals that underpin your performance, constantly update your understanding of the environment that you're performing in and check that you've got the most up to date and relevant tactics going. Your risk profile is an essential part of this and you'll have got into very strong risk taking habits in recent times when the environment has remained constant - in challenging, novel conditions, you can't rely on habits, you have to consciously and explicitly control the performance you're delivering and cash in on all of your past experiences. The main risk you mustn't take right now is too let your habitual thinking control everything uncensored - consciously competent risk taking is the order of the day!

An experiment...

2009-02-12T07:55:00.003Z

We'd like to invite you all to take part in an experiment - and of course let us know any results you might experience.

We talk a lot about the importance of feedback and the fact that elite performers crave feedback and seek it out, rather than waiting for it to "happen" to them once or twice per year in during a performance review. So, instead of perpetuating a less than useful attitude towards feedback we'd like you to see what happens when you do the following:

1. Identify something that you're working on and attempting to improve/change/refine (this might be making a strength stronger, rather than just developing a weakness).
2. Start working on that thing very deliberately.
3. Make some notes around feedback to yourself about what you've noticed as a result of your efforts.
4. After you've been working on it for a while, find a colleague who you would like to hear from and tell them that you've been working on the thing you've been working on and whether they have any feedback specifically about that bit of your performance - don't just spring it on them, give them time to think and reflect and then give them chance to pass any feedback to you that they believe to be useful (you might have to remind them that feedback is simply that and should not be heard as "can you point out to me things that need improving"!)
5. Listen to the feedback they provide you with and compare it to your own thoughts.
6. Decide what you want to do with the feedback.

We'd be interested to see if you find this any more helpful than simply asking "can you give me some feedback on how I've been performing recently?"

Looking forward to seeing your results!

Snow Day

2009-02-09T14:06:00.003Z

A colleague recently sent me this email which I thought I would share:

=======================================

Snow Day

Well mother nature has given me a day off. Hooray!

For those of you not currently in the U.K. and therefore not subjected to 24 hours of heavy snow and 24 hour rolling news about heavy snow. I am telling you there is very heavy snow.

And all this snow has made us a very happy nation - firstly because we all love snow, and snowmen, and snow balls and sledging, secondly because we now have a valid reason for mentioning the weather and best of all because ‘severe conditions’ have given many of us a day off work. Yes we are very happy about the snow.

So this morning I have two very excited not-at-school children holding welly boots and a white, winter wonderland outside my window waiting to be explored….

We head for the park to join the hundreds of others who have happily not made it to school or work today. On the way I regret not buying the old-fashioned wooden toboggan that I saw after Christmas but once we arrive and position ourselves at the top of the hill next to the other sledgers I feel quite proud. Our upside-down coffee table toboggan is looking like a pretty good goer next to the competition which, aside from a few proper sledges, consists of dustbin lids, school dinner trays, plastic bags, a few road signs and the lid from a car’s roof box.

I could go on to talk about how the Make do and Mend resourcefulness of the emergency sledge builders was only a part of the joy of the day – there was of course the beauty of the landscape, the absence of cars, the community spirit, the collective celebration of our magical stolen day….. but I wont. I’ll stick to resourcefulness.

So we are walking home past the picture perfect Victorian houses where every landscaped garden sets the stage for its own showman snowman. All very traditional – coal from the hearth used for the eyes, organic carrot noses, tweed trilby hats and cashmere-looking scarves.

And then we come to the estate at the bottom of our road and as we walk along with flats on either side of us we don’t see any snowmen. This particular council block doesn’t have a landscaped garden to build snowmen in. So our ‘which snowman is the best?’ conversation stops and we are quiet for a while….Until Vera Lily suddenly shouts ‘LOOK! UP THERE’. And I look up to a fourth floor window to see a five foot snowman standing tall and proud on what must only be a 6 inch window ledge. He is very smartly dressed and has bright blue eyes made from what looks like knotted up plastic grocery bags and he is smiling to the world.

I stifle a still-instinctive swear word and instead say ‘oh my goodness! How did he get up there?’ Emmanuel starts to sing ‘Walking in the Air’ suggesting through the power of song that this man of snow flew up to his spot on the windowsill. ‘No’ says Vera Lily, trying to think logically, ‘some children came down and collected the snow from the street and took it up the stairs in lots of buckets and then they opened the window and built him there.’ ‘Their Mummy held onto them so they didn’t fall out I think’.

Whoever built his big fella must have, as Vera Lily suggested, brought the snow up through the flats. You just couldn’t collect that much snow from a windowsill or several sills. And even if these people used the lift rather than the stairs, that’s still a lot of effort – real over-commitment to the cause.

So I just thought I’d share this story with you all as a reminder that just because our ambitions are often bigger than our resource (or outdoor space) allow we mustn’t let cold, hard, windowsill reality to get in the blinking way.

That snowman is probably still standing up their wearing the proud smile of his creator – who imagined the impossible and then set about making it real. It took time and energy, heavy buckets, cold hands and the risk of a dark comedy death – but then that was quite clearly the joy of the Challenge.

When process alone is wrong.

2009-02-09T07:34:00.003Z

Reading Rose Shapiro's book "Suckers: How alternative medicine makes fools of us all", there was a pretty compelling point made that complementary and alternative medicine always talks about the treatments on offer, but it seldom talks about cures. Most of the language implies effectiveness of treatments, but in reality, there is no clinical evidence that any of these treatments deliver a final product. If success for these approaches is "taking money from people for false hope", then success is achieved with great regularity! However, in most cases, the people are looking for impact and results (usually with quite specific disorders and never when there's something serious going on! As pointed out in the book, people don't go rushing off for a bit of Reiki when they've got a leg hanging off after a car accident!).

So, how is this relevant to high performance? Well, we know for a fact that in the high performance world, no one would ever settle for a process that seems plausible, is presented nicely and for the most part with naive good intentions, that didn't actually consistently and irrefutably deliver the results. This approach would just be jettisoned very quickly to find a process that more effectively delivered on the required results.

We promote a lot of process or input thinking with people who work for us, but the ultimate accountability is always to have processes that deliver a performance outcome. Placebo effects are interesting, but they're not ultimately the high performance answer.

So, look around you in your performance world and ensure that there isn't too much reliance upon processes that look nice but don't actually deliver the goods. After all, there's enough quackery out there in the world of complementary and alternative medicine without adding to the pool!

Jim Collins...

2009-02-06T11:51:00.003Z

is a very clever man, on all sorts of levels. Not only has he authored some very good books , he's also just produced this timely bit of PR, which has got some great stuff in it.

Most interestingly, Collins asserts that; "What we're experiencing now, get used to it! It's life, and it's the normal life. " Which suggests to us that a lot of what we've been blogging about is going to become consistently important, rather than people thinking this stuff might be relevant for them because of the current circumstances.

Another point that is of relevance to us all relates to thinking long term and keeping a much longer end-game in mind and not simply becoming great at reacting (or overreacting) to the here and now.

The final points to highlight are the following:
"The right people don't need to be managed. The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you've made a hiring mistake.
The right people don't think they have a job: They have responsibilities. If I'm a climber, my job is not [just] to belay. My responsibility is that if we get in trouble, I don't let my partner down.
The right people do what they say they will do, which means being really careful about what they say they will do. It's key in difficult times. In difficult environments our results are our responsibility. People who take credit in good times and blame external forces in bad times do not deserve to lead. End of story. "

We've been talking for a long time about ultimate confidence actually being "knowing that you WILL do what you say you are going to do." Nice to have the thoughts backed up from elsewhere. But to us, more than anything, these examples just show an exemplary focus on performance - if the focus is performance, then a lot of this stuff makes even more sense. Have you got the people around you who understand performance and how to perform in order to get the desired results? It's easy to become an expert and identifying results, talking about them and then explaining failure to deliver those results - it's a lot harder to become a performance expert.

Oh, and thanks to one of our performance focused friends within D&B for highlighting the article to us.

Do you run the numbers...

2009-02-05T10:11:00.004Z

or do they run you? (a great line from Accenture... thanks for that!). Just been reading about Kevin Pietersen, the England cricketer, getting out for 97. He was out playing a typically KPish type shot. KP, please stay true to yourself and keep playing the way you play. Ignore the ill-informed, myopic commentators who believe that a number is more important than a performance. Had Pietersen scored 101 and then got out with the same kind of shot, he'd still be criticised, but not as much as he is now.
Why? Because he'd have had a score on the board that had 3 figures against it, rather than 2 (which are very, very nearly 3). Had he got out in the same way for 156, he'd have been criticised less again, because the number was bigger. Had he got our for 36 in the same way, less criticism again.

Here's a quote from the BBC, "Pietersen has now missed out on two Test centuries which he would have achieved and that must hurt" (BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew). Why must is hurt? It hurts if Pietersen defines himself by numbers rather than talent. It hurts if Pietersen is more worried about his personal statistical record than taking any opportunity he sees to score runs. It hurts if Pietersen is aiming to suppress his natural ability and let just 1 element of performance feedback cloud his judgement, change his thinking and redefine himself as a performer.

Fortunately, KP does not think like the commentator who is imposing a limiting mentality on a player that has a superb performance temperament.

Never, let the pursuit of an arbitrarily determined number get in the way of your quest to make the most of your talent. You control numbers, they should not control you. KP, we applaud you. Thankfully, you are not a sufferer from number fixation syndrome!

Will and Skill

2009-02-02T08:10:00.002Z

What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? What happens when an immense combination of WILL+SKILL meets and immense combination of SKILL+WILL? You end up with an epic tennis match, again.

The lessons from yesterday's Australian tennis Open final could go on and on and the incredible displays of mental toughness pay testament to just what can be achieved psychologically when you have an immense talent base upon which to draw.

For most mortals, tough situations are avoided and the desire to pitch oneself against the toughest opponents looked at with dread - not so for Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. These two players seem to thrive on being pushed to their limits. The punch and counter punch, constant raising of performance and response speak volumes about these two sporting greats - Federer, majestic, calm, full of poise and timing, striving for success; Nadal, intense, relentless, passionate, dynamic and seemingly driven by raw emotion to ensure he doesn't lose. Two very different recipes to bring out an incredibly similar standard of performance.

We are lucky to be witnessing these epic encounters - seldom in sport will two such stand-out performers be defined by the performances they produced collaboratively, despite their immense individual achievements. It's a privilege to be able to learn from watching these two greats.

Getting your tactics in Synch

2009-01-29T14:34:00.011Z

We've just finished the 2 day kick off to the athlete at work^® programme and really enjoyed some interesting conversations around performance in these testing times. One of the most interesting discussions was around the perceived pressure to get more done in less time. Wouldn't we all like that? So, when we talked about being mindful about what tasks people are choosing to do, at what times of day, it seemed to really strike a resonant chord. The group reached the conclusion that they would get more done in less time if they worked more in line with their their natural energy rhythms throughout the day. If this sounds deceptively simple, then that pleases us immensely... it suggests it might just work!

So, stop for a moment and think about which points of the day coincide with your most effective work? When does work feel easiest? Is it in the morning? Late afternoon? Evening?

Now have a think about those times in the day when work seems a little harder. When do you find it tougher to concentrate? When do those meetings just seem to drag? Are there times when you have a slump in energy? For many people, early afternoon is a time of reduced effectiveness - but not everyone, so have a think.

What are you choosing to do with these different times? If you're someone who is most productive first thing in the morning, then how can you make the most use of this time each day? And if you're more of an evening person, what work are you saving up for your best working time? This is when your most challenging and important tasks are likely to get done most effectively and efficiently. So be selective about what you do and when you do it!

Which activities are best left for the naturally less productive times? Perhaps the less taxing elements of your work, or something that you find really energising to do, or you could even choose to meet with someone who you find interesting to work with and who doesn't drain your energy levels (they might even top them up!). In your less productive times it's probably best to avoid the business critical tasks (I know they're all business critical, but some of those emails are less important than others!). You're less likely to do key activities with the quality and focus that they require when everything is feeling like a grind. The key tasks are likely to take longer and you're more likely to make errors.

So, don't just use up your time every day - focus on using your time mindfully. Time is a precious thing and it's even more important to use it optimally in such interesting and challenging times.

Do what I know...

2009-01-28T07:44:00.003Z

It was interesting watching a clip of Cathy Freeman yesterday reflecting on her gold medal success at the Sydney Olympics, in front of 112,000 people, carrying the hopes of a nation and performing under a huge weight of expectation.

In the midst of all of that hype, excitement, pressure, hope and expectation, as she warmed up, Cathy Freeman simply kept repeating to herself, "Do what I know, Do what I know". Nothing more complicated than that. Some incredibly powerful, simple, self-instruction. Under all that scrutiny, what did she know she could do? She knew she could do what she knew she could. She knew her abilities in detail and simply had to trust that they would be there when she needed them most (no reason to believe they'd suddenly disappear!). No self-instruction like "win gold" or "don't screw up" - simply, "do what I know", which is all about the process. Get the process right and you maximise the chances of getting the outcome you know you're capable of.

So, do you know yourself well enough to trust what you'd get when you do what you know? Have you spent enough time thinking about your process, so that you can trust it under the most intense pressure (as well as when you're having an easier time)?

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, so someone once said, but to be as simple as that, you have to have studied yourself and accepted your abilities in some detail. Go on, be in a position where you can do what you know, and enjoy doing it.

Compete on Preparation...

2009-01-21T16:44:00.004Z

It's clear to us that when the conditions are favourable, people get very used to being able to get away with minimal preparation - your natural talents, allied with the helpful environment, conspire to get you to where you want to be. The conditions lull you into a false sense of security about how much preparation you need to carry out in order to get the "result" you're after.

So, the conditions change and now the result is much harder to achieve, and perhaps the confidence that was once there (based purely on repeat outcomes, rather than being built up from the process that produced the result), has now gone missing. Instead of the result being "inevitable", you've now got to get world class, very quickly, at preparing. How can you use the pre-performance time to maximum effect? Where should you be focusing your energies in order to ensure that you fully exploit the preparation time that you have?

There is an art to preparation, and the elite athletes we know are superb at gaining competitive advantage (not to mention enormous confidence), from being world class at preparing: leaving no stone unturned, focusing their energies on the things that will give them maximum return on time invested, not to mention preparing every bit of their performance pie (and not just the obvious technical and tactical preparation).

So, how good are you at gaining a head start through your preparation? When times are tough, exact every piece of advantage from every opportunity afforded to you. As Eric Cantona once said (no, not the seagulls thing), "It’s easy to battle it out on the pitch without having prepared fully and then say ‘I gave it my all’. The point is that if you had prepared carefully you would have had more to give and you’d have played better." Says it all really. Thanks, Eric, much better than trawlers and seagulls!

Just for today...

2009-01-20T09:01:00.002Z

If the kind of objective feedback that you're used to has gone awol, it can be pretty difficult to judge yourself in the way that you're used to. This is a bit like when the sports people we work with have to perform in very different weather conditions - the way they or the equipment responds is very different, so objective feedback soon becomes misleading.

When the hard data is untrustworthy, you have to be great at trusting how you're feeling during the key performance moments. You also have to trust that you're thinking the right things and doing the right things. You have to build a new, more sensitive portfolio of performance markers, rather than rely on an outdated database of past successes.

So, we'd suggest, if the objective feedback has gone, just for today, you're going to have to focus in on preparing much more thoroughly around the discrete ingredients that produce a great performance. Just for today, work out the contents of your performance script and challenge yourself to deliver the performance, one step at a time, and hold yourself accountable for delivering each step as well as you possibly can. Stay in the moment, focus on step by step excellence and see what it produces. And if the objective feedback is still untrustworthy tomorrow, just for today starts all over again.

Performance Fundamentalists

2009-01-17T08:20:00.005Z

A busy week for us at K2, hence the lack of missives. Back to it though.

We were thinking about the fundamental things that underpin performance this week and as any good student will tell you (!), the first thing to do when thinking about something is to look it up in the dictionary and provide the definition verbatim! So, here you are:

fundamental
• adjective of or serving as a foundation or core; of central importance.
• noun a central or primary rule or principle.

Having thought about that it seemed to us that a lot of the time, when it comes to performance, people forget about fundamentals, or they don't keep remembering them! They presume because they've built the foundation or core once, that they don't have to worry about the obvious things any more. It sometimes seems trivial to go back to work on things that have been put in place long ago, when there's much more sophisticated things to be thinking about and getting better at.

From our work within elite sport, we see that there's an explicit and continual balancing of maintaining and improving fundamentals along with developing high end abilities. There is a constant paranoia that the fundamental skills or tactics could be better, upon which the performance is founded. Is your performance foundation getting ever stronger because you're constantly improving the fundamentals, or is your performance structure getting ever higher with new abilities, but the foundation is being neglected in search of new heights? Any other thoughts on performance fundamentalism? (Check out what we've written about simplicity in our thoughts too)

Our latest thoughts...

2009-01-09T11:54:00.002Z

Rather than simply blogging regularly, we do write slightly longer musings from time to time. Have a look at the links to the left under "our thoughts" and click on number 3 for our latest offering. Please comment here if there's anything you'd like to feed back about that article particularly. If you don't want to comment, then just ask us a question!

3 Key Attitudes...

2009-01-08T11:04:00.007Z

We know from the greatest people we've worked with that they're superb at consistently carrying around with them the ideas that...

Their natural talent is not enough for them to excel...

They have to constantly keep working on where to focus their desire to improve... and

They have to embrace change and drive change if they're going to truly be able to be great.

These become particularly important when results are hard to come by.

Do they work for you?

Bad Science, Performance Focus

2009-01-06T17:14:00.003Z

We'd highly recommend visiting www.badscience.net to help you debunk a lot of the nonsense that gets published about what might or might not be good for you. It's clear from a lot of the trash newspaper articles that Ben Goldacre takes to task, that the common theme stems from lazy journalists or out and out charlatans trying to convince people that they have uncovered something amazing that will change everyone's lives.

If you adopt a high performance mindset a lot of the Daily Mail bunkum, detox nonsense, and medical misinformation is rendered instantly redundant. The high performers we know ALWAYS take complete responsibility for their performance and they know that there are no short cuts to success - they have to work hard and follow basic mental and physical rules to keep in the best shape possible to perform. They also know their minds and bodies very well (great self-awareness) and realise that no magic potions can remove toxins (especially one's that aren't in the body in the first place!), and no superfoods exist that will suddenly change their lives. In short, they don't look for answers that are outside of their control, but they look to take action that is proven and totally down to how tenaciously they stick with their rules for winning.

At a time of year when you're looking for performance gains and a renewed resilience, look no further than the simple principles of eating a balanced diet, burning off as many calories as you put in (or slightly more if you want to lose weight!), understanding your strengths and knowing where and when to apply them, and staying focused on great mental and physical preparation one day at a time.

Thank you Dr Goldacre for promoting good science and high performance thinking!

Emotions, Performance... and results

2009-01-02T17:05:00.007Z

You may have read a lot about Emotional Intelligence from good folks like JCA or Daniel Goleman. You might even have had your emotional intelligence measured! It's great stuff and an essential component of any high performer - we don't know any person at the top of their game who doesn't posses huge self-awareness and self-management skills, and they're equally tuned in to getting the most from other people too. However, great performers also posses enormous amounts of Performance Intelligence^® too.

You might want to think about what your balance is between Emotional and Performance Intelligences going into 2009. Being emotionally intelligent alone will get you so far in these testing times, but actually being 100% on top of your Performance Intelligence^® will ensure different results altogether.

Performance Intelligence^® is made up of how well you know the arena you perform in and how well you know yourself as a performer (here's some other stuff we wrote about it). In addition, you need to know how effectively you use this knowledge to help drive the strategy and actions that lead to results. It's all about knowing AND doing, and having the balance between the two absolutely focused on delivering predictable results.

We think the smart focus for 2009 is on maximising Performance Intelligence^® and it's safe to say that you'll have to be emotionally intelligent to bring everyone with you who you need on your journey, so get EI + PI to maximise your resilience and effectiveness from here on in!

Strong start for 2009

2008-12-30T13:54:00.003Z

While everyone indulges in the annual madness of new year's resolutions and seeing who can break them most quickly, why not go down a different path? Rather than trying to think of a grandiose plan for the whole of 2009, why not focus on what your optimum start for 2009 looks like?

We'd certainly not discourage you from keeping the new year resolution approach if it works for you... but for the majority of folks, a 12 month behavioural change plan is usually too much, because it stays at a 12 month view, without actually breaking it down into discrete steps that need to be taken in order to ultimately make the change that you'd like to achieve by the end of the year.

So, whatever your view and aim, we'd heartily recommend making sure that your sights are well and truly focused on a distance into the future that works for you. What's your optimum goal span into 2009? Is an interim goal of about 6 weeks right for you to keep you energised and focused, or do you need a series of smaller goals? Does the natural 3 month plan work for you?

Thriving in 2009 is the aim... but make sure you know exactly how frequently you need to set, review and re-set your targets to keep the motivation, excitement and confidence fuelled and working for you. Take aim... Fire.

Looking Forward to 2009...

2008-12-24T09:42:00.005Z

It's interesting how by creating a whole "eve" concept, it adds to the excitement of what's to come. Would Christmas Day be quite so exciting without the clear, exciting signposts that are Christmas Eve? Probably not quite as exciting, although the day would still hold its own charms and rituals. However, there's some useful learning from creating a sense of anticipation, excitement and expectation.

Looking forward to things, in both meanings of the phrase, is important for delivering optimal performance and taking on challenges. Just think about how something feels psychologically different if you're not looking forward to it - you're tentative about what's going to happen, you're unhelpfully nervous, you've got a predominantly reactive mindset where the situation is controlling you, you're probably not confident about how you're going to perform and you'd happily not actually go through with the event in reality.

When you're looking forward to something in contrast, you can't wait for the time to start, you're excited about the prospects of what's going to happen, you're confident you'll take everything in your stride as well as carry out the bits you've planned, in short lots of positive thoughts and emotions.

Thinking about some key events at the beginning of 2009, what can you do to make sure that you're creating a Christmas Eve feel for some key events early in the year? What is there to look forward to? What is there that engages your curiosity and makes you wonder about how well you might be able to deliver some performances?

With a lot of natural trepidation around from a business point of view for 2009, everyone is going to have to work harder at looking forward to things in order that they take the challenges on with maximum effect. Good job we've got Christmas to learn from.

Changing Your Perspective

2008-12-19T11:01:00.007Z

This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of the launch of the Apollo 8 space mission by NASA the first manned mission to leave low Earth orbit and travel to the Moon. The crew took one of the most iconic photographs of the 20th Century - showing the Earth rising above the horizon of the Moon - as they orbited far from home.

It's often been said that this picture of the Earth gave momentum and focus to the environmental movement, showing as it did our only home as a small, fragile, place floating in the vastness of space. A "grand oasis" as astronaut Jim Lovell put it at the time. The human race got a new perspective from the Apollo 8 mission, and one that perhaps had more impact than even the landing of man on the surface of the Moon in 1969.

As the folks at K2 know, I'm a bit of a space nut, and regularly see parallels between the events of 40 years ago for NASA and my work as a business leader at AXA now. The Apollo 8 story is no exception. Often at this time of the year we can find ourselves scrambling around seeking to get done all those tasks we said we would have finished by the "year end". We can get so bogged down in task completion at the coal face of business that we narrow our perspective too much. Oddly this happens just at the time when we are also seeking to define our purpose and aims for the coming year - which requires a wider focus.

This week my team and I had our last get together of 2008. Instead of choosing to spend all our time listing all the things we might not have done yet we lifted our collective view and stood back a way from our business to view it differently. This helped us tremendously in reestablishing the purpose of our team (Why we exist). The perspective we got from viewing our business as a whole entity - just as the Apollo 8 astronauts saw the whole Earth - also enabled us to make really great choices about What areas of performance it was best for us to focus on redefining & improving in 2009.

Instead of ending the year with a mindset beset by a list of things we didn't quite finish we've parted for the Christmas break with a really clear vision of what our ambition is for 2009, why we have those ambitions and how we need to perform, as a team and as individuals, in order to bring our ambition to life. Our changed perspective has given us a superb platform from which to deliver success in 2009 despite the chaos around us.

So, a thought from me as I remember Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders of Apollo 8, is to consider what perspective you are using in your work right now and to consider whether viewing things from a different angle or distance might help you make great choices for the year ahead.

Don't burn yourself out!

2008-12-19T10:11:00.007Z

In this video we see Prof Richard Wiseman (of "The Luck Factor" and "Quirkology") demonstrating that firewalking is a load of old tosh. Most enjoyable, as although we believe in the power of the mind sometimes it can be taken a bit too far! Fine line, genius and insanity!

It got me thinking about the power of the mind and that it can actually only take you so far... sometimes you have to go with the Stockdale Paradox and realise that simply being blindly optimistic about your ability to deal with anything in your path does not have longevity.

The firewalkers could have walked the whole length of the burning coals, had they kept stepping off every 15 feet, checking their feet and then stepping back on for another 15 foot burst. It's still walking the whole length, but it's realising that natural limitations need to be listened to and accounted for.

Who out there is simply trying to tough it out by pushing themselves in the blind belief that your body can take anything and you simply have to hang in there for long enough? Who is being smarter and regularly facing the reality of the situation you're in, coming up with a short term plan to make progress and then sense checking again? Focused bursts of intense, full conviction effort, contrasted by regrouping and recovering will ultimately allow more of your natural talents to be used, with much greater effect.

Don't be like the fire walkers! Understand that you're capable of great things when the pressure's on, but be smart about the way that you use your abilities and apply them mindfully to the immediate challenges you face so that you can keep using your talents and not get burnt out!

Footballer Wisdom...

2008-12-18T14:22:00.004Z

Two words I thought I'd never write next to each other... an oxymoron if ever there was one!

However, take a look at this from Robbie Keane, the Liverpool benchwarmer.

"I'm not being big-headed but I've scored a lot of goals in the last 10 years and it's not just going to go away like that," he told BBC Radio 5 Live."

"I never get down about things. Some players get their head down and cry but I'm too mentally strong for that."

"I've only been here a few months and sometimes it does take a little time to settle in. I prefer to be judged a little further down the line than now."

In keeping with the previous post... he knows his talents aren't just going to go away like that. We're backing him to carry on being a great player. Robust confidence in action folks. How do you compare to Robbie?

Track Records and Perspective

2008-12-18T11:14:00.003Z

A quick thought for you...

Step 1. Look back over your career and identify your top 10 career highlights (or 5 if you're pushed for time!)

Step 2. You're a common denominator in all of those highlight performances. Which of your personal qualities shine through as instrumental to success in each of those occasions? Are there one or two qualities that are ever presents in all of the successes? Are there any qualities in there that you've taken for granted or forgotten about?

Step 3. Looking back over the last month, how and where have you deliberately exploited those qualities that are obviously so important to your success? How effectively have you been playing to the strengths that you have?

Step 4. Whilst taking some time off over Christmas, when your thoughts turn to work, why not spend some time planning how you're going to kick-off your performances in 2009 completely led by your qualities from step 2. How are you going to bring those qualities to life, one day at a time as you face the early challenges of a new year?

Planning how you're going to perform to your strengths will bring you an extra few essential bits of control and confidence over your performance when you need it most and will help to start the year in style. This helps with controlling the situation and not letting the situation you're in control you.

Opportunity in chaos...

2008-12-16T21:50:00.003Z

Someone mentioned today that there is opportunity in chaos...

Seems like a sensible assertion. And there is opportunity for sure, providing your know what abilities you have to exploit that opportunity. It's been said that "chance favours the prepared mind" and these two ideas sit nicely together. Opportunity and the prepared mind.

How prepared is your individual, team or corporate mind? Are you self-aware enough to be ready to exploit the opportunity in the chaos? If you don't know yourselves, you'll just know there's an opportunity present. If you do know yourselves, then the opportunity can be exploited to the full.

While the chaos is going on around you, why not take some time out to ensure you're 100% clear on how and why you're going to be able to exploit the opportunity that is inherent?

Not sure what we mean? Then post a comment and let's start talking about how to achieve this... it might mean you succeed and take the opportunities, where others simply sit and observe, knowing another opportunity has just passed them by!

Survive or Thrive?

2008-12-15T21:32:00.005Z

I was talking with a team we work with the other day and remarked how they were in a perfect storm. End of year mayhem to bring home the promised numbers, a change of leader, planning for 2009 to be completed and a really uncertain external climate. The perfect situation for a team to fracture.

At this point, ordinary teams become groups of individuals, with increased focus on individual areas with the mindset of "I don't want to be the one responsible for failure." In these circumstances, teams often stop communicating and become focused on making safe choices rather than brave ones, they stop building confidence and instead focus on making sure they don't lose too much of it. They feel less and less in control as the external conditions present ever increasing challenges and rather than the mindset in buoyant times which is much more likely to be "how can we make the most of this?", they choose the mindset of "I hope I / we survive."

Thinking about how to survive 2009 is one choice. Thinking about how to thrive in 2009 is another. The external conditions won't change, though your individual and collective performance probably will. It's not about ignoring external reality. It's about actively accepting it and and then asking "how can we make the most of these conditions?"

Eating my own dog food....

2008-12-02T22:50:00.006Z

So I'm sitting on the stationary bike doing a warm down session after a half marathon on Sunday. It's a bike in a hotel gym though exactly the same make and model as the bike I use at my local gym. It's only a warm down session so I'm not going crazy -even so I start to become a little disappointed at my speed. My cadence (rpm) seems to be fine and I feel like I'm working at the right level of exertion but I'm simply not going very fast.

I start to tell myself that I must be more tired from Sunday's race than I thought I was - as I started to feel more disappointed still, I began to wonder if I should call it a day. Then I realised the problem. The bike at my local gym is calibrated in kilometres and this one's in miles.

Now my attitude changes completely. I become pleased with myself that I can do such a god job after Sunday's race and notice that I feel strong. I begin to enjoy the session, I push myself harder and am a little sorry when it's over.

I can't believe my series of schoolboy errors:

1. Don't assume because something looks the same, it is the same

2. Listen to how you're feeling as well as the data - feelings are valid data too

3. When you reference your performance to an external source you can demotivate yourself superbly

Note to self - in tough times, remember that your personal qualities stay with you - and don't change whether it's miles, kilometres or anything else...

Go on, be brave...

2008-11-30T15:30:00.006Z

Whilst having a rare flick through the FT the other day, we happened across a book review for "Managing to Learn Using The A3 Management Process to Solve Problems, Gain Agreement, Mentor, and Lead" by John Shook. Not the most enticing of titles! However, the FT article was entitled "The Toyota mindset revealed", which got us interested straight away.

The review is here if you'd like to see it for yourself.

However, if you can't be bothered to read it, here's some bits that we thought were great and we wondered how many people were going to be brave in these challenging times and see if they could take advantage of these simple, but powerful ideas (or make more from them if you're already doing it!).

"Western managers think their job is to get results. Toyota thinks managers’ job is to design and sustain processes that generate these results as a matter of course. Western managers think they employ workers to do a job. Toyota employs workers to learn how to do the job better – to keep improving that process, and therefore the results. Western managers think management is about knowing the answers and telling other people what to do. Toyota disagrees again: if managers tell staff what to do, they take responsibility away.

The manager’s job is to help staff learn problem-solving skills and work out what they need to do for themselves. Real organisational leadership is about doing both – improving operations and developing people – at the same time in such a way that they are mutually supporting."

Highly simple, highly effective ideas. Very in keeping with the PlanetK2 view of things in relation to eliteteam concepts and very clear that if you ultimately want high performance that is culturally dependent and not reliant on individual leaders, then these kind of ideas are the way forward... especially when the performance demands are higher than ever.

Talents...

2008-11-28T12:11:00.003Z

When we're in circumstances that look and feel totally foreign, we can often conclude that we don't have appropriate skills to deal with what we're facing. That conclusion comes from focusing on the situation as unique, unexpected, threatening and basically unwanted!

However, if you're aware of all of your talents that have led you to be successful (both contemporarily and historically), then you can start asking yourself some useful questions in relation to what your recipe for success has been, such as:

What talents do I have that consistently help me deliver success? Which bits of me always play a part in the successes I have? (because no doubt I should be leading with these strenghts now)
What successes have I achieved in the past, in different roles or circumstances, that used some talents that I've stopped using more recently? (can you bring these "forgotten" talents to life to help now?)
Rather than just thinking about your "technical" talents in your job, which bits of your personality are going to be particularly helpful right now when dealing with novel challenges?

If you focus on your talent pool and identify/target your talents appropriately, you'll find your confidence levels are likely to be higher.

Next step thinking...

2008-11-26T06:49:00.003Z

The concept of "next step thinking" came up last week in a conversation. This is all about focusing on being in the moment and being confident that you can do the next thing you need to do with complete focus and confidence. It seems that this is very important at the moment. Much of our thinking, confidence and focus is constantly tempered by a view to the future and a sense check of whether we're going to "deliver the result". We rely heavily on this barometer of future success to give us a sense of belief in the here and now and as a result we confuse personal confidence to perform with our perception of expected future success.

So, given that the ability to predict the future and work out that everything is going to be o.k. seems to be a near impossibility at the moment we have a couple of choices.

1) Choose the fact that we can no longer predict the future and become very stressed and have a constant feeling of impending doom with us every step along the way, or
2) Accept that information about the future is essential, but untrustworthy at the moment, so focus on building the future one step at a time.

If we focus on the next step and think about all the reasons why we are completely confident that we can take the next step with the required skill, style and commitment, then we have a chance of getting on a confidence roll. We all still have the same skills, abilities, knowledge and experience, so it's essential to keep focused on applying these skills to new sets of problems that arise.

So, what's your next step today?

Stating the obvious...

2008-11-25T13:37:00.003Z

Do you know that people perform better when they are clearly focused on playing to their strengths, rather than focusing on how not to have their weaknesses exposed? Pretty obvious really, but there's a big assumption that everyone has their finger on the pulse of their strengths. In our experience, that's not the case

We also know that under pressure people's dominant thinking and behaviour patterns come out... so, if you've spent most of your time focused on what you need to be better at, under pressure, you're dominant thoughts of what you're not good enough at will predominate.

Times are tough, the pressure is on, so make sure that you are absolutely clear on what your strengths are so that you can play to them and drain them dry.

Bleedin' obvious, but not an approach everyone is set up to exploit!

Active Recovery...

2008-11-19T17:06:00.002Z

One thing that we know from working with the highest level athletes is that they value and actively exploit recovery in order to perform better. This contrasts with the views that we hear in the corporate world, where is appears there is a perception sometimes that sleep and downtime are an inconvenience to getting a job done, rather than an essential influence on a person's ability to sustain excellence and constantly improve.

So, given we're in challenging times, it's worth thinking about how effectively you're utilising rest and recovery to deal with what is essentially a more draining and energy sapping time. Ask yourself whether you're managing to feel refreshed as a result of your sleep. Check whether you're getting any opportunities within the course of a challenging day to get a worthwhile time-out so that you can have a mini re-charge, so you can give a concerted effort again. Check whether you're assuming that you can keep giving your optimum performance without paying attention to the need to rest your brain and body. Are you using rest, recovery and time-out for a competitive advantage? If you work out the ideal recovery strategy for you and put that alongside the optimal performance delivery strategy, then you're going to be winning more consistently.

Don't let the situation you're in control you to make poor performance choices. You control the situation - the situation does not control you.

Attitudes are contagioius...

2008-11-17T07:38:00.003Z

... are yours worth catching? (Great line that we've seen attributed to Aussie cricket great, Steve Waugh, but I'm sure it came from somewhere else first!).

Actually, do you even know your attitudes? If you're not fully aware of those attitudes, then you're probably not realising how you're infecting people around you! When the conditions around you are really tough, it's absolutely essential that you know how you're attitudes are impacting upon the people you interact with. Mindful use of attitudes is another one of those factors that won't guarantee success, but it's an area that you can control and to be honest, if you don't, you're missing an opportunity to make sure that you've done everything within your power to win through.

So, what kind of attitudes are helpful at the moment in your world? In leadership positions? In team player positions? Which kinds of attitudes create noise that you need to limit the impact of? Who are the great attitude leaders in your environment that you need to make sure get listened to and that you know you need to be around in order to benefit from their mindset?

Ask yourself if you can have then world's best attitude for dealing with current challenges, just for one day. If you can, see how well you can implement that mindset for one day, and then set yourself the same challenge tomorrow!

Paradoxes of Performing...

2008-11-14T14:40:00.003Z

in pressure situations.

Often the success of delivering when facing challenging conditions can be influence greatly by being able to hold two paradoxical beliefs at the same time.

For example, in Good to Great, Jim Collins introduces the Stockdale Paradox, in which he outlines the importance of being able to "confront the brutal reality of the situation you're in, while never losing faith that you'll triumph in the end. We refer to this as Stark-Optimism, and it's an essential quality to work on at any time, but particularly when you're going into threatening unknown territory (after all, it's named after a man who derived the idea whilst in a prisoner of war camp!).

Another good example of the paradoxical thinking you require is the need for Robust Agility - how good are you at maxing out your strengths and leveraging every ounce of performance from them, while focusing on developing new, essential talents for the demands of the challenge you're facing. Simply being Agile isn't enough and simply hoping you're strengths will see you through will limit your effectiveness. You've gotta strive to be great at both.

What would using those paradoxes do for your performance?

Darren Bent and the World Economy...

2008-11-11T17:23:00.002Z

We thought you might like to read this piece by Alan Hansen on the BBC Website about the remarkable transformation in the football player Darren Bent. It struck us that if only Harry Redknapp could be let loose on the world economy, he might have a similar impact on global confidence levels. Hansen's bottom line view is that talent is nothing without confidence - you might have all of the abilities in the world, but without confidence, you won't be the fully potent force you might be.

Think of all of the talent that is currently being forgotten because of a dearth of confidence. If you read some of our earlier stuff on confidence, you'll see we believe confidence to be something that should always come from within and shouldn't rely on external influences to determine it. However, we know the reality is that people struggle to have the very self-defined confidence, so we would suggest the following. Instead of focusing on lack of confidence in the current world around you;

1. Ask yourself whether you can be the best performer going in an atmosphere that's lacking confidence - can you still deliver better than others right now because of the talents that you have?
2. If confidence was never going to come back, what would you start to look to in order to get a sense of surviving and performing in that very different world?
3. Despite confidence being lacking, what factors are constant around you that let you know there is still a performance to be delivered and key processes to go through, all of which are in your control to deliver to a greater or lesser level of effectiveness?

Let us know what answers you come up with and if this starts to get you thinking differently about how confidence might work for you.

Short feedback loops

2008-11-09T15:42:00.006Z

I've re-learned something really important this week - that giving and receiving quality performance focused feedback and then taking responsibility for doing something about it is vital for my performance. And to enable that to happen a few things are required: I have to be open to feedback - to want to know anything that might make me better. Sure, having received it, I'm going to think about where it came from and does it add to evidence already received? I'm also going to ask myself if it makes me feel uncomfortable? To be able to answer any of those questions, I have to be open.

Secondly, short feedback loops are the best. Like a boat setting out for a destination, if I only get information that might enable me to correct my settings when I'm off course once every six months, the corrections are going to feel violent and they might be too late to prevent me from hitting the rocks. Getting rapid feedback enables me to correct my course a few times each day - so that it feels to me as though I'm pretty much always on course and gives confidence to those around me that I know where I'm going. Without those short feedback loops and without being open, I could go off course and I'd be creating unhelpful noise in the heads of those around me.

We're currently getting lots of short feedback loops about the state of the economy, so without matching short feedback loops focused on our performance, then ever shifting desination and current course might be ever more out of sync.

Competitive Learning...

2008-11-08T09:51:00.004Z

Something we work on a lot in the world of high performance sport revolves around the concept of "competitive learning". If we can learn quicker, more effectively and produce performance refinements quicker than the opposition (between races or matches, or within a tournament), then we know we're gaining a competitive advantage when we're not head to head.

Imagine how much speed of learning and reaction to learning is critical in the current climate. Agility is often talked about with the corporate world (are you agile or fragile?, etc). However, agility has to be the result of great learning through superb knowledge of your own performance and extreme confidence to be able to make the right decisions about how to alter your focus or intent.

Individual or collective learning is a skill, so you have to practise it to get better at it. Just hoping you'll get better at learning quickly in these highly pressured times simply doesn't cut it. Maybe by working out how learning can be competitively advantageous for you, you'll be able to decide how you might invest more effectively in this critical element of performance.

If you can get access to this Harvard Business Review article, it's well worth a read to help clarify one particular way in which learning might work for you. (Learning in the thick of it).

Come and pick our brains about how competitive learning works - can you afford not to right now, when every experience is precious and every performance moment counts?

Performance Intelligence...

2008-11-05T07:58:00.004Z

So, how Performance Intelligent are you?

We've got a simple formula that you can begin to think through that will help you begin to work out what your PI score is.

There's four questions to ask yourself:

How well do I know the world that I have to perform in?
How well do I know my own performance ingredients that are unique to me?
How well do I turn knowledge about my world into effective strategy to deliver?
How consistently do I deliver a performance that exploits all of my unique ingredients?

Have a think about those things and see if you are 100% confident in your answers to the questions. If you're left with an uneasy feeling about the honest appraisal of the questions, then there's probably some pretty simple solutions for helping decrease your concern over the area in question.

We're pretty sure that people who can answer all of the questions with 100% conviction and confidence are very Performance Intelligent. The more Performance Intelligent you are, the greater control you have over delivering results with certainty. Now, wouldn't that be a nice feeling to have - knowing you're going to deliver!

Talking to yourself

2008-10-30T15:18:00.002Z

I don’t know about anyone else but I really have to dig deep at the moment to keep everything going and that includes me. I am reminding myself of the importance of looking after me so I can look after the team. I was starting to spiral into that place I can go where I excuse neglecting me by telling myself that I am doing it for the team, the team need me, I need to be there to support the team. Blah Blah Blah.

I caught myself telling my Mother with great passion the other day why I was cancelling my days off for the second time and took great pleasure (for about 2 minutes) in telling her how she didn’t understand my complicated world and cancelling your holidays is just something you have to do! Total Rubbish of course!

What I am reminding myself, with some very stern self talk, is that if I am not 100% and not rested and taking time for me that I am in fact letting the team down. Its simple stuff I know but just talking to myself again is keeping me sane.

Fit to Perform?

2008-10-30T15:15:00.000Z

It's pretty clear that the coming months are going to explore the endurance of business leaders, both physically and mentally. Endurance will give you the capacity to persevere with demanding work for long periods of time; enable you to make good decisions when physically and mentally tired; and find those additional reserves of energy if the going gets tough (didn't we mention Billy Ocean when we sent you an invitation recently?).

So, are you fit to perform or fit to drop?

There is some good news about endurance. First, it is very trainable. If you want more stamina then you can have it, if you work at it in the right way. Second, you can develop endurance while in the thick of performing, if you use your intelligence and approach things in the right way...

There are four relevant key principles to developing endurance...

Specificity: Your training needs to be specific. If you want to train for a marathon, then you'll need to do some running. So, if you want to get fit to cope with the demands of work, then the best way to do it is to face the challenges of work with the attitude that any increased workload provides an opportunity to test your endurance, stretch it a little and see how good you can be.

Transferability: If you're fit for running, then some of that fitness will transfer to cycling. Likewise, if you are physically fit, then some of this endurance will transfer into your work performance. Don't get me started on this one... there's so much data to support this that we'd need a whole new blog to cope with how training and improving fitness are directly linked with improved cognitive performance and emotional well-being!

Overload: To get fitter, you benefit from pushing yourself beyond comfortable limits. However, overdo the overload and predictable problems can start to occur. With a sports person they'll start to suffer from injuries and illness. In business, lack of concentration, insomnia, chronic fatigue and susceptibility to illness are some of the signs of getting the balance wrong.

Recovery: So, in order to prevent "over training" it is as vital to pay as much attention to the quality and quantity of your rest as you do to the quality and quantity of your work. You will gain endurance while you are resting and recovering. So, make sure you intersperse periods of hard work, with periods of high quality recovery. The better you get at recovering quickly, by using good sleep practices and energising nutrition, the harder you will be able to work and the greater your capacity to endure will become.

So, what's your energy management strategy? How are you ensuring that you get good rest and proper nutrition? Are you preparing for the demands you face and then planning effectively to get enough rest and the right foods to be able to deliver the performances you need, when you need them most? Are you making the time to train so that you enjoy the physical and psychological benefits of improved fitness?

What barriers are you hitting to managing your energy effectively and developing your endurance? Post any barriers and challenges as a comment here and we'll see if the inhabitants of planet K2 can help.

More done in less time...

2008-10-28T08:34:00.021Z

We received the following feedback on planet K2 yesterday. Not only did it make us feel quite good about ourselves, but we also realised that there's quite a bit we can learn from these select words, particularly when it comes to filling the physical component of the performance pie...

"My training continues – making the right eating choices still goes up and down, but increasingly more ups than downs as time goes on. I’ve no doubt that my current physical performance and state of readiness contributed to my recent success and I have to say, it all started with the principles from your workshop.

The business pay-off? Afternoon slumps are a thing of the past and I’m getting more done in less time. Bonus!"

What can we learn from this gentleman?

First, most change in behaviour is not a straight line. There will be ebbs and flows in how well we do what we set out to do. The two keys to his success in making sure an ebb did not lead to a total lapse?

To have a constant reminder of his commitment to pursuing his goal. He used the colour blue to remind him, gave himself a blue screen saver on his work PC, wore a blue wrist band got himself a blue water bottle (he was training for his blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu!).

He accepted that making changes to habits will not be a straight line. Stuff gets in the way! He has a young family, a demanding job and walks past an award winning bakery on the way to work! He judges himself by how well he sticks to the behaviours and also by how well he gets back on track after a slip up. First prize is to have no slip up. Second prize is related to how well he recovers from slip ups. This doesn't mean he's easy on himself, but it enables him to retain perspective and root his efforts to change in reality, not in a fictional perfect world.

The fitter he gets and the more healthily he eats, the better he performs at work. He's choosing his fuel more wisely and making sure he's training appropriately. Good food choices and regular exercise are now physical performance fundamentals for him. Without them he'd be getting less done in more time! So he's controlled the things he can control (no-one else puts food in your mouth!) and has systematically developed his physical capacity to perform.

Do you know what your physical performance fundamentals are? Are you in control of them? Do you have a strategy, not only for what you intend to do, but how to stick to them? Commonsense? Perhaps. But how commonly are you applying this commonsense? These simple physical performance fundamentals become even more vital in allowing you to deliver consistently to your best in the face of changing demands.

So, are you choosing to get more done in less time or less done in more time?

Total Performance

2008-10-28T07:56:00.007Z

We talk a lot about pies on planet K2... Performance Pies. We know that if you're serious about performing, then you always ensure that every section of your Performance Pie is delivering you maximum value.

Typically, people focus a lot on the Technical and Tactical elements of the work (just check out a typical c.v.), but spend less time focused on the difference that physical, mental, emotional and contextual can make to delivering consistently high performance.

We'll focus on some of these key areas over the next few weeks to show you how you can get more out of your Performance Pie during challenging times.

If you don't look to get a complete pie working for you, we reckon you're actually choosing to under perform, by not paying attention to factors that are critical influences in the final analysis. Right now, you probably need all the resource you can get your hands on and there's loads of resource within that pie that probably hasn't been systematically exploited for some time.

Why bother?

2008-10-27T08:03:00.005Z

Viktor Frankl (author of the great book, Man's Search for Meaning) observed that "where there is a why, you can endure almost any how"... deep words... but very true.

So, have a look around you. We're in pretty tough times, and the people who have a "why", either a personal why, team why or organisational why, that actually means something, are more likely to be able to endure any current challenges. When times are good, the "whys" really make a difference too in terms of fulfilling potential. However, the "whys" right now really need to be present. Do you see the right kind of people?

Who's seeing beyond the current doom and gloom? Who's seeing only the doom and gloom?

Who's going to be making sure that you manage the current climate more effectively than everybody else in your sector by doing 'almost any how'? And who's giving in and just waiting for the inevitable failure, because they have no clear why that actually means anything to them?

Character and attitude are going to be crucial for the next few months. As has been oft observed, attitudes are contagious. Make sure that the negative attitudes, let loose with no "why" to guide them don't become the contagious ones in your world. Be brave on leading with attitude and strong character traits and see who else is going to help deliver an important "why".

Valuing the difference you make to People?

2008-10-22T14:36:00.007+01:00

I love the piece on Mental Toughness but mostly the thought about choosing to see your confidence as valuing the difference you can make to people. I have never chosen to think about my confidence in this way, I think I've always chosen to shy away from the view of being seen as confident and resilient and preferring to just think of having a 'Positive' 'Can do' attitude. But it is so much more than that when I reflect on when I feel most motivated and performing at my best it's when I am adding value for my team. It's when I know my performance has made a real difference for a particular individual or team. Recognising and appreciating your own attributes in this way, I think I've always worried could be seen by some as over confidence or even arrogance. Now I just think I've been letting myself and others down by not choosing to see my value in this way. I may have been adding value quite unconsciously but now how much better am I going to be!

In a simple choice...

2008-10-21T12:48:00.007+01:00

In my last post I reflected on the change in context of my role and identity at work and how this impacted on my performance and emotions.

I took a decision there and then to look at my situation differently and to choose to feel something else more useful.

Of course, it is never really as simple as choosing is it? Along with the decision to choose comes the action one has to take to reinforce and affirm the choice. Otherwise it is nothing more than a thought (a field will remain unploughed if you keep turning it over in your head).

So for the past week or so I have been doing just that. Catching myself when I am feeling anything other than what is most helpful and changing the thought pattern; taking time out at the end of the day to either review my personal success (either by myself, or verbally with my partner) and making note of the differences in my emotional and mental state from day to day.

And guess what?

Well, I certainly feel different. I have experienced a sense of walking taller, of feeling prouder and of being a little more self assured inside. "Miraculously" I have also found it easier to carve my groove and get my niche at work...people have started to seek me out once more and involve me in projects and work that they hadn't seen necessary or important before.

Now isn't that strange? Can it be all related to my simple choice?

Of course the clever wotsits at K2 would tell me its all about what I put out there; that it is all about putting myself at the cause rather than than being the effect in my life.

And you know what? I think they might have a point!

High Performance Leadership

2008-10-20T21:20:00.007+01:00

You might be interested to read Lawrence Dallaglio's recent words in a great article in the Times.

This paragraph jumped out for me as being majorly relevant to the current challenges...

"We had great players in specialist areas and leadership was clearly an integral part of our success in 2003. We had Johnson, Vickery, Hill, Back, Greenwood and Dawson — leaders and personalities all over the pitch. This is an area in which I think England have had, and continue to have, concerns.”

In pressurised times, to have a number of key personnel who see themselves as leaders from their position within a team, you have a far greater chance of success. Every one of them leading by making sure their performance sets standards. Every one of them urging more from someone around them. Everyone of them being focused on delivering, for the team. Great leaders don't lead for themselves, they lead for the greater good of the collective effort. What a great set of attributes to have at this point in time - how many leaders are stepping up for your team, from their position of influence?

Mental Toughness...

2008-10-20T16:41:00.004+01:00

In some research we were involved in a few years ago, we found a couple of interesting things out about people who were voted as very mentally tough by folks who understood their world.

First thing was that mentally tough people had confidence that didn't break down easily - it wasn't necessarily very, very high confidence, but was more characterised as robust. Any thoughts about how robust your confidence is (confidence in your own abilities!)?

The other interesting thing about the mentally tough folks was that they always thought the team would perform better if they were around, because they knew what qualities they bought to any team they were on. If they weren't there, these obvious qualities would be missing, so the team wouldn't have their undoubted strengths to draw upon. So, why is your team better off because you're part of it and are you maximising the benefits of you being around right now?

If you're going to be mentally tough, you have to invest some time working out how to make your confidence robust and how to ensure you're valuing the difference you make to people. There's more to it than that, but those were two highlight points that seem pertinent right now!

Consistency of performance in an inconsistent world

2008-10-14T16:06:00.005+01:00

Looking for a previous article from HBR on resilience I came across the attached old favourite which seems as pertinent now as it did in Jan 2001 (when the market was bouyant).

The Making of a Corporate Athlete

Some more on goals...

2008-10-14T14:25:00.013+01:00

We like copying the great coaches from sport who we've worked with and we've noticed they talk a lot about the same things, because they're the fundamentals, until people get it! So, even though we put some stuff up about this last week, it's still important and it's probably useful to keep focusing on goals for a while yet!

We know from working at the Olympics that if you're totally obsessed with the gold medal then when it comes to actually delivering a performance, you'll be thinking about the wrong thing completely. We also know that you have to be totally obsessed with winning the gold medal in order to have a chance of winning! As with comedy, the timing is everything. Focus on the wrong kind of goal at the wrong time and you'll underperform - maybe not by much, but enough to make a critical difference when it matters most.

That's why sports people understand and exploit the complementary difference between process goals and outcome goals in a consistently effective way. If the Outcome goal is the gold medal, little point constantly saying to yourself throughout a race "I've got to get the gold" - that's not going to help. Such outcome focused thinking just gets in the way of the thing that matters most, right now.

Athletes make sure that they have identified, 100% clearly, the gold medal Process targets, the inputs, that they'll need to deliver one moment at a time through a performance. Complete commitment to delivering each one of the inputs, as effectively as possible, creates a much more effective focus for delivering great performances. So, when the pressure's on, they can focus every ounce of desire to achieve the outcome into the controllable, step by step process.

Your goals are probably pretty clear right now, from an outcome point of view. Is there the same clarity and level of discussion about your process goals? Is there the same obsessive drive to deliver on the inputs? If obsession on outputs is not matched by tenacity of focus on the trusted inputs, then you're not setting yourself up to deliver in these challenging times. Worth going back and reading the other stuff we posted on goals!

Negatively stressed? What's your chosen response?

2008-10-13T08:18:00.012+01:00

"It's subtle this performance coaching stuff, but it works. This time last year if circumstances had been the same I'd have been sh*!ing myself and unhealthily pessimistic. This year I'm still pessimistic, but understand that this pessimism is actually useful. If I use it appropriately, it helps me to perform better. Also, last year, I'd have eaten crap, drank too much and responded negatively to the stress. Now I think... 'I feel stressed, better go to the gym'."

Roughly these words were said to me by one of our clients last week who has been coached around performing in challenging circumstances. He understands how to perform a lot better now and this new self awareness has enabled him to choose how to respond to the feelings he is experiencing in these testing times, and therefore use them to stay in control and fully confident of his own performance.

Is anyone else feeling the strain? How are you currently responding? How would you like to respond? Are the answers to these last two questions the same?

Confidence is priceless - and expensive

2008-10-12T10:06:00.005+01:00

Reading The Times this week, Ben Mcintyre reminded me of something that Miss McIntosh taught me in 1971. 2+2 = 4. The maths is true and is the same this year as it was last, but something has changed - what we have lost is not the ability to add up but something much more precious; confidence. Apparently it can't be bought, even for $700bn, £500bn or any other made up numbers flying around at the moment. Despite enormous sums being thrown at it, confidence is not (yet) responding.

The impact of this quality going AWOL? JK Galbraith said that "when people are cautious, questioning, misanthropic, suspicious or mean, they are immune to speculative enthusiasms." Put another way, when there's no confidence, the ability to have a mindset focused on positive performance disappears. I'm not saying we should ignore reality - far from it. I am saying that in the face of reality, the only high performance response is to choose to focus on the confidence qualities that sit inside every individual and team we work with and are not dependent on changing conditions. For them 2+2 still equals 4. Miss McIntosh will be much relieved.

Be Careful What You Wish For

2008-10-10T10:01:00.005+01:00

My performance has, more than ever before, been at the forefront of my mind recently.

I have just started a new role...same company...new role though. When first approached about the job, I thought "Wow, what a great opportunity; a new challenge without the usual upheaval and culture refamiliarisation required with a move to a new organisation."

I couldn't have been more wrong.

It seems I had underestimated the impact of my identity loss...I was Head of Blah, now I am Head of a Different Blah. All of a sudden I went from a position of clarity, focus, confidence and control to...well...not clarity, not focus, not confidence and not control!

All this and the credit crunch! Oh woe is me.

Woe is me, until I reflected upon some of the stuff I was discussing with a colleague recently in a coaching session (well, there is nothing quite like taking your own medicine is there?). In this reflective moment I recalled some self talk of recent times...in fact it might not just have been self-talk, more like blatant-open-talking-to-anyone-who-would-listen...

I can recall saying, thinking and affirming..."I need a new challenge!", "I'm getting a bit bored", "I learn best when I am out of my comfort zone", "I feel like I want to get my teeth stuck into something different", "I need to move on"...you know what I mean, don't you?

And I am reminded of the saying "Be careful what you wish for because you might just get it". I have wished for and manifested this situation...so why on earth am I spending my time in woe? Why aren't I doing what I do best - learning when out of my comfort zone?

So, I make the choice now. I am getting on with it, enjoying the ride and learning...and being careful what I wish for!

Happy Friday!

Keeping your head...

2008-10-09T16:50:00.007+01:00

...while all others around you are doing a good impression of something without a head, requires a lot of mental toughness.

Like anything that's difficult, the more you prepare for the challenge, the more of a fighting chance of success you have when the key moments actually arrive. So, given that the playing field has changed somewhat at the moment, the need for top quality preparation becomes ever more important. We've learned a lot from helping people prepare for key sporting moments... and we think what we've learned translates pretty well.

We could write a lot on mental toughness and mental preparation, but that's probably for another day. So, instead of that, have a look at our thoughts on how to use 3 cornerstones of performance (control, confidence and connectedness) to help you have the best chance of delivering a great performance, even when the world around you is making it very tough to do so. It works for people at the Olympic Games... so can it work for you?

Once you've read it, tell us what you think! Go on, we'd love to know that you think.

Confidence is everything...

2008-10-07T16:17:00.004+01:00

We like Simon Barnes in the Times quite a lot. Bloody clever bloke and he's welcome on PlanetK2 any time he likes! His latest musings on the role of confidence in the current financial climate take a break from his usual expert stuff on sport and nature notes, but he's on the money again. He got us thinking about a favourite topic... CONFIDENCE.

Confidence is one of those things that we talk endlessly about at K2: Robust confidence, rather than lots of confidence; being great at not losing it, rather than just having it; making it as strong as possible, rather than only thinking about it when it's gone missing; spreading epidemics of confidence, rather than just having your own confidence... and so the conversations go on.

Sports people tend to talk a lot about confidence and whether there's enough of it or not. Unfortunately, it seems the business world has turned into one of those pitiful football managers who claim in a lost voice, "all we need is a win to get our confidence back". Hogwash! All you need is to start understanding what confidence is, where it comes from and how to control it, and then you'll maximise your chances of winning again - never simply rely on a result to determine whether you think positively about yourself or not. Sure, exploit the feel good factor of getting a positive result, but never confuse success alone as a reason to up your confidence account.

The greatest sportsmen and women don't rely on results for their confidence - they work hard on knowing what is uniquely strong about their capabilities and capacities (regardless of result) and how to exploit those hard earned strengths in the heat of battle. Confidence is never something they have or do not have because the world around them has told them whether or not they should have it!

As soon as you relinquish the right to determine your own confidence in your ability to perform, then you probably don't deserve to be performing in that arena any longer. When the world around you has lost it's confidence in a set of arbitrary financial indicators, it's more vital than ever that you understand how to protect and exploit the confidence that you have in you.

Paralysed by goals...

2008-10-06T18:00:00.006+01:00

Under pressure, we know that people's focus tends to narrow down onto just a few things and very often, this actually means missing out on some really important information that's in the world around you. We think we've noticed quite a lot of attentional narrowing onto those wonderful things called "goals" and it hasn't all been positive! Missing key details can happen when there's no pressure around, thanks to the phenomenon known as inattentional blindness, but under pressure, attentional problems are further exaggerated.

As the economic pressure cranks up, so too does the obsession with delivering numbers and the reliance on those numbers to show no signs impending doom. In our elite sport work, we've seen much more pragmatic approaches to exploiting goals, which we'd like to pass on. We also remember from our days back at university that the science of goals can give a much more balanced view of how to use goals for a positive impact, so we thought we'd right some stuff about that, which we've hopefully made available for you here (go on, click it, it's quite good!).

So, let's broaden the view of goals and what they should be doing for you and have a conversation about making sure goals are adding value in these pressure times, rather than simply helping to reinforce the rampant perception that "we're all doomed, doomed I tell you!".

Read away and share your comments. We can't wait to chat about this!

Planet earth is blue...

2008-10-06T17:04:00.004+01:00

... but we don't think it's terminal!

Wow, there's some interesting stuff going at the moment and it's inspired us to put fingers to keyboards in a bid to pass on our views of high performance, at a time when eeking out every ounce of performance potential has become even more mission critical than normal.

We have a passion for high performance and have a variety of experiences of helping to deliver great results for teams and individuals in testing (as well as less testing) circumstances.

We wanted to be brave and share our views with other folk and this blog seemed like a simple and quick medium for doing just that. So here we are! Now we're simply very curious about how many conversations we can start, with how many people, about delivering when the chips are down.

We have lift off!