Emotions, Performance... and results

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!

Performance Intelligence...

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!