Talent and Potential

Improved performance requires growth and without growth, our career is doomed to stagnation and eventual death.
Exaggerating? Stop watering your plants for a few weeks and see what happens. Organisations that don’t get better, don’t improve their performance year on year are stagnating too.

If you, as a leader, don’t grow, then your career will stagnate. You may be exceptionally good at what you do, but if you want to move up the hierarchy, you need to grow into that position before you get given it. Afterwards, is far too late. Plus, you won’t have developed your team to take your job. So how can they promote you?

How Do We Raise Performance Easily?

🎯 Purpose and Payoff

Being prepared to learn and change and put in the necessary effort is a critical step in growth and improvement. And getting yourself and team members to regularly consider what's going well and what needs work is essential if you want to improve performance. 

📑 Process

To do this I'm sharing four simple, yet oh so powerful, neuroscience based questions that work to stimulate personal growth. And the resulting conversations will take you just 5 to 15 minutes of your time.
Use it ONCE now as I guide you, and you’ll immediately gain ONE benefit with a very clear action for next week. 
Use it with your team members ONCE and you’ll gain ONE improvement in performance next week. Use it weekly, and you’ll gain 52 improvements this year. The improvements don’t have to be huge. Small gains add greatly.

The Four Questions

Keeping The Good Stuff 

If I were to ask you to tell me how was work for you this past week or so, the chances are very high that you would reply along the lines of: "It was OK/good/not bad/fine/terrible“. 
It’s dull, boring and not at all helpful. 
Instead, I’ll ask: “Tell me, what three specific things that you enjoyed and/or believed that you did really well at work this week?”
So here, I’m going to give you a few moments to consider your answer. Pause the player if you’re listening and write them down if you can.
If this is your first time, you are probably finding this a little challenging. If you’re replying “nothing”, stop again and find something - go further back in time if you need to but do the work here. You’ll thank me later.
Got three things? Fantastic. If we were in a live coaching here, I’d be probing into your answers to help you dig out the beautiful gems within. For now, let your magnificent mind mull on these and let’s get to the easy part.

Identifying What Needs Work

If you struggled some with answering that first question - fret not, you are in very good company. Pretty well all of my clients struggle with this because we are so used to dwelling on this part: What needs work?
Her's your question: "What is the ONE real challenge for you, that if you improved or changed, would have the greatest positive impact on your performance now?"
Again. Pause the player and write down your answer.
Got ONE? Not two or more. Choose ONE.
Is it about someone else changing? Think again. This is about you. Your performance.
Awesome. If you and I were in a coaching session right now, I’d be digging in to make sure that this is the real core challenge. So a quick add on to help you now:
“Is there anything else that is the real, real challenge for you here?”
Now before you rush off and start, I have two more questions for you. Next, let’s get you motivated.

Finding The Drive

“What, exactly, do you want to achieve?”
If you, or somebody of whom you are asking this is struggling here’s another approach that’s more specific to the change:
"What will you achieve by changing this ONE thing?"
Many clients find this a difficult question to answer, principally because we’re not taught to think like this. Yet the most successful leaders do know what they want to achieve.
Write down your answer.
Now you know. Let’s ignite the touch-paper and send you on your way.

True Empowerment

“How can I help you?”
When you are asking this of your team, this question tells them that you are here to help them succeed.
And do remember, empowerment and delegation are not the same thing.
You delegate authority to someone to do something.
You empower someone with the power to do the thing and the authority to do it.
Delegation works fine when they know what they need to know and how to do what they need to do. If they don’t then they need the power (tools/resources/ability/knowledge) as well as authority to do it.
And if you need my help, click here.

How and When to Use This?

You gain ONE immediate benefit using this just ONCE for yourself. Use it ONCE with your team, and you’ll get ONE improvement next week. Use it weekly, and you’ll see 52 improvements next year. Those improvements may be small but they quickly add up. Soon enough, your team will be doing this for themselves continuously and multiplying your impact and performance.

What’s Happening in the Brain?

If you’ve been going through this exercise, your brain’s just gone on a bit of a rollercoaster ride.
1. By considering what you have done well, you’re remembering positive, affirming strengths that you have displayed and you are feeling encouraged and good about yourself. Thanks to some serotonin and dopamine. It also, thanks to the dopamine, reinforces those positive things to be repeated.
2. Then, by considering what needs work - your brain takes a bit of a dive. A little cortisol is triggered, maybe some adrenaline too if it’s unpleasant, and your motivation levels drop. You’re causing a deep thinking pause and reflection weighing up and prioritising changes that will have a real impact on your performance. And, you’re already working out how to use your strengths (mentioned before) to lift these weaker areas.
3. By asking what you want to achieve, we re-open your brain’s motivation circuits to think of the future and your own goals. You begin to feel good about this thanks to more dopamine and serotonin, maybe some endorphins too.
4. By offering your help to your team members, they’ll feel greater belonging and trust (oxytocin), you’ll be able to truly empower them so that they lift their performance, feel more motivated (dopamine) and you’ll be lifting their ability to lead themselves and others too, multiplying the impact you are having.
And all it takes is 5 to 15 minutes of your time. Time you’ll more than recover within a few weeks simply because you and your team are performing better.

Four Questions Summary

1. What three specific things that you enjoyed and/or believe that you did well this week?
2. What is the ONE real challenge for you that, if you improved or changed, would have the greatest impact on your performance, what would that be?
3. What do you want to achieve?
4. How can I help?

How Can I Help?

I use this approach with every client of mine at the start of every coaching session. They prepare for it with a simple worksheet so that it takes very little time so that we can spend more time on encouraging, developing, guiding and empowering them.
If you're not ready for live coaching, we have a fabulous asynchronous coaching programme for this. You can start a one month trial by filling in the registration here.
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